Sakha affixes in Sebjan-Küöl Ėven

Summary

Affix function number of borrowed affixes

Description

Information and examples are from Pakendorf (2012), see also Pakendorf (2009; 2010), who counts fewer borrowed affixes because of adopting different criteria. The ones given here are all attested with native stems, even though examples of hybrid formations are only given for a few here. Note that there is some formal overlap in the person-number markers of the three different paradigms.

4 mood markers

  • -jAktAːk ‘necessitative’
  • -dAg ~ -dAk ‘assertive’
  • -A ~ -Ar ‘indicative present tense’, e.g. ọrọn em-e-j-er (reindeer/come-epenthetic-connective-present.participle) ‘the reindeer are coming’
  • -jAk ~ -jAːg ‘hypothetical mood’

5 subject markers for necessitative mood and indicative mood (out of 6 such subject markers), combining with -jAktAːk ‘necessitative’ and -A ~ -Ar ‘indicative present tense’. Third person singular is unmarked.

  • -pIn ~ -bIn ‘first singular’
  • -kIn ~ -gIn ‘second singular’, e.g. em-e-j-egin (come-epenthetic-connective-present.2sg) ‘you come’, ọrọn em-e-j-er (reindeer/come-epenthetic-connective-present.participle) ‘the reindeer are coming’
  • -pIt ~ -bIt ‘first plural’
  • -kIt ~ -kI-hnAn ‘second plural’, e.g. huː ọlọk ụtal-a-jaktaːkkịt (2pl/emphasis/understand-epenthetic-necessitative.2pl) ‘you have to understand’. (Note that the form -hnAn used by one speaker on various occasions is native Ėven and that the borrowed element -kIt is truncated in this form.)
  • -llAr ‘third plural’ (Note that in the necessitative mood, native Ėven -A-l ‘third plural’ is used.)

5 subject markers for assertive mood (all 5 borrowed), combining with -dAg ~ -dAk ‘assertive’. No second person plural form occurs in the corpus, since the assertive mood gives a strong nuance of emphasis to the assertion that would not be used with reference to the addressee.

  • -Im ‘first singular’, e.g. haː-j-bat bọl-lagịm (know-connective-negative/auxiliary-assertive.1sg) ‘I did not know’
  • -Iŋ ‘second singular’, e.g. neː-j-er bọl-lagịŋ (put-connective-present.participle/auxiliary-assertive.2sg) ‘you put (it)’
  • -A ‘third singular’
  • -pIt ‘first plural’
  • -tArA ‘third plural’

5 subject markers for hypothetical mood (all 5 borrowed), combining with -jAk ~ -jAːg ‘hypothetical mood’. First and second person plural forms do not occur in the corpus.

  • -pIn ‘first singular’
  • -kIn ‘second singular’
  • -In ~ -n (with deletion of final -k of -jAk) ‘third singular’, e.g. em-u-jen (come-causative-hypothetical.3sg) ‘(he) might bring’
  • -tArIn ‘third plural’
  • -kA ‘impersonal’

1 non-interrelated suffix

  • -Is ‘ordinal numeral formation marker’, e.g. dig-is ‘forth’

Note that two further Sakha affixes are found in the corpus, but only rarely occurring on Ėven stems, or in contexts where Sakha might be the matrix language, in which case Ėven words receive Sakha inflection. Therefore, they are not counted here. These are (i) -An ‘perfective (sequential) converb’, e.g. ič-e-j-en (see-epenthetic-connective-perfective.converb) ‘yes, they do see’; and (ii) -BAt ‘negative present’, which stands in paradigmatic opposition to -Ar ‘indicative present tense’, e.g. haː-j-bat (know-connective-negative) ‘(I) did not know’.