Bodzvokhan Grammar
Bodzvokhan is an inflected or fusional language. It shows some head-final word ordering, for example adjectives precede the nouns they modify. Nouns and adjectives are inflected for number and case, and verbs for aspect, polarity, voice and agreement with their subjects and objects. The language contains many borrowings from Russian as well as English.
Nouns
Bodzvokhan noun morphology is mostly fusional, meaning that each affix conveys several pieces of grammatical information that are not each separable into distinct phonetic elements. Nouns showcase distinctions in singular and plural numbers and nominative and genitive cases.
The shape of the noun root determines the form of the number and case suffixes. The height of the vowel in the root determines the height of the vowels in the suffix used, i.e. suffixes display vowel harmony. Below, the declension of three types of nouns are shown: ending in a vowel, ending in a consonant, and ending in a consonant cluster:
| High vowel | Low vowel | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vowel-final | Consonant-final | Cluster-final | Vowel-final | Consonant-final | Cluster-final | ||
| Nominative | Singular | dri ("stone") | qǝs ("summit") | dǝzhn ("language") | avto ("car") | den ("master") | örq ("orc") |
| Plural | drif ("stones") | qǝsif ("summits") | dǝzhnivǝ ("languages") | avtof ("cars") | denef ("masters") | örqeva ("orcs") | |
| Genitive | Singular | drin ("stone’s") | qǝsǝn ("summit’s") | dǝzhnǝn ("language’s") | avton ("car’s") | denan ("master’s") | örqan ("orc’s") |
| Plural | drim ("stones’") | qǝsim ("summits’") | dǝzhnivin ("languages’") | avtom ("cars’") | denem ("masters’") | örqeven ("orcs’") | |
Agentive nouns
Agentive nouns, formed with third-person verb agreement prefixes (see below), include pegazdasa ("worker"):
| Singular | Plural | |
|---|---|---|
| Nominative | pegazdasa ("worker") | khegazdasa ("workers") |
| Genitive | pegazdasan ("worker’s") | khegazdasan ("workers’") |
Adjectives
Adjectives are placed before the nouns the modify, and agree in case and number with them.
Verbs
Verbs demonstrate agreement with their subjects, direct objects and indirect objects, and conjugate for aspect, polarity and voice. This is done by means of affixes, which can appear in a total of five positions around the verb root. The first three positions are before the root, and take prefixes, and the last two are after the root, and so are for suffixes.
Prefixes
In the table below, the prefixes of position 1, which encode agreement, are displayed:
| Position 1 | Personal Agreement | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Person | Subject | Indirect Object | Direct Object | |||
| Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | Singular | Plural | |
| 1st Person | a-/ǝ- | ts- | v- | n- | or-/ur- | zr-/sr-/r- |
| 2nd Person | k- | sh- | ng- | ny-/ng- | r- | zr-/sr-/r- |
| 3rd Person | p- | kh- | m- | ng- | vr- | r- |
| Reflexive | — | l-/ld- | ld- | |||
In the following table, the prefixes of position 2, or adverbial prefixes, are shown:
| Position 2 | Adverbial |
|---|---|
| Habitual/Antipassive | pazn-/bazn-/pǝzn-/bǝzn- |
| Conditional/Potential | ton-/don-/tun-/dun- |
| Infinitive/Nominalization | h- |
The position 3 prefixes, which convey information about aspect, can be seen below:
| Position 3 | Aspect |
|---|---|
| Imperfect | a-/ǝ- |
| Perfect | o-/u- |
| Gnomic | e-/i- |
Using the prefixes detailed in the tables above, nǝd ("give") can be conjugated as ǝmvrǝnǝd ("I give it to [him/her]"), kvǝvrunǝd ("You gave it to me"), khngrbǝzninǝd ("They always give them to you") and khngrbǝznunǝd ("They always used to give them to you"), for example. The nominalization strategy can be used to create infinitives, which may be complex, for example ǝngvrhunǝd ("for me to have given it to you").
Suffixes
Two types of suffixes may follow the verb root, called position 4 (mood/voice) and position 5 (polarity) suffixes. The position 4 suffixes are used optionally, and so do not always appear. They are varyingly referred to as mood and/or voice suffixes, and shown in the following table:
| Position 4 | Mood/Voice |
|---|---|
| Passive | -ar/-ǝr |
| Applicative | -oh/-uh |
| Causative | -ez/-iz |
The position 5 suffixes give information about polarity. Affirmative polarity suffixes are typically omitted, except for emphasis. They are also used for agentive nouns formed from verbs. The position 5 suffixes are detailed below:
| Position 5 | Polarity |
|---|---|
| Affirmative | (-a/-ǝ) |
| Negative | -o/-u |
| Yes/No Question | -e/-i |