Haughòf Grammar

Haughòf Language Navigation: Home, Phonology, Grammar, Vocabulary, Orthography

Haughòf is a highly isolating language. It is mostly head-initial, and the word order is verb-subject-object (VSO). There are prepositions, which cause different kinds of consonant mutation in the following segment. Relative clauses follow the nouns they modify. Possessors are marked with a preposition, and follow possessees.

Nouns

Nouns in Haughòf do not inflect.

Noun function

Haughòf is a nominative-accusative language. The subject is generally unmarked. In a regular transitive sentence, the preposition wà/w/v precedes the object. The form of the preposition used depends on the phonological environment. It generally causes a consonant mutation of the following segment.

Number

There are six noun numbers: singular, dual, paucal, gregal, plural, and collective. The gregal number is used to refer to a pack or herd. The singular is the unmarked form. The rest are marked with a preposed particle, which generally causes consonant mutation of the following segment:

	Cluster	Vowel	Fricative	Plosive
	bram "dog"	alo "floppy ear"	kwav "bird"	dogho "name"
Singular	bram	alo	kwav	dogho
Dual	ka vram	kai alo	ka khwav	ka zhogho
Paucal	mema vram	mema alo	mema khwav	mema zhogho
Gregal	mema vram	memai alo	mema khwav	mema zhogho
Plural	lakhwa vram	lakhwai alo	lakhwa khwav	lakhwa zhogho
Collective	he mram	hem alo	he gwav	he nogho

Possession

The genitive preposition a(i) is used to mark possessors, and follows the possessed noun which it modifies.

Determiners

Demonstratives come at the very end of a noun phrase. Haughòf distinguishes animate and inanimate demonstratives, as well as proximal and distal locations. This means there are four distinct demonstratives:

	Animate	Inanimate
Proximal	dyàk	mòl
Distal	kwèm	raṭ

Verbs

Copulas

There is an equative copula and a locative copula, which both have positive and negative forms, resulting in four different copulas:

	Positive	Negative
Equative	ṭò	tyu
Locative	khwè	bal

Numerals

Haughòf uses a base-18 number system, with lexical subbases in evidence for base-11 and base-6.