Nganasan language


The Nganasan language is a moribund Samoyedic language spoken by the Nganasan people. In 2010 it was spoken by only 125 out of 860 Nganasan people in the southwestern and central parts of the Taymyr Peninsula.

Classification

Nganasan is the most divergent language of the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family. There are two main dialects, Avam and Vadeyev. Vocabulary can be traced to elements of the unknown substrate origin, that are roughly twice more common in Nganasan than in other Samoyedic languages like Nenets or Enets, and bear no apparent resemblance to the neighbouring Tungusic and Yukaghir languages. The source of this substrate remains a mystery so far.

Phonology

The language has 10 vowels and about 20 consonant phonemes.
Several bisyllabic sequences of vowels are possible:
------
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

One of the main features of Nganasan is consonant gradation, which concerns the consonant phonemes and their nasal combinations.

Orthography

The language's Cyrillic-based alphabet was devised in the 1990s:

Grammar

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns in Nganasan have the grammatical categories of number, case and possessivity. Nganasan lacks determiners; however, the possessive forms of second person singular and third person singular can be used to express definiteness.
Sg DualPlural
NominativeØ-KƏJ-"
AccusativeØ ~ -KI-J
GenitiveØ ~ -KI-"
Dative-NTƏ--NTI-"
Locative-NTƏ-NU--NTI-NU
Ablative-KƏ-TƏ--KI-TƏ, ~KI-TI-"
Prolative-MƏ-NU--"-MƏ-NU

Pronouns

Nganasan has personal, demonstrative, interrogative, negative and determinative pronouns. Personal pronouns are not inflected: their grammatical case forms coincide and their local case forms are expressed by the corresponding possessed forms of the postposition na-. Other pronouns are inflected like nouns.
Nom, Gen, Acc LativeLocativeElativeProlative Personal pronouns + clitics Personal emphatic pronouns
Sg1mənənanənanunənagətənənamənunəmɨlʲianəŋonənə
Sg2tənənantənanuntənagətətənamənuntətɨlʲiatəŋonəntə
Sg3sɨtɨnantunanuntunagətətunamənuntusɨlʲiatɨŋonəntu
Du1minaninanuninagətəninamənunimɨlʲianiŋonəni
Du2tinandinanuntinagətəndinamənunditɨlʲiatiŋonənti
Du3sɨtinandinanuntinagətəndinamənundisɨlʲiatiŋonənti
Pl1mɨŋnanuʔnanunuʔnagətənuʔnamənunuʔmɨlʲianɨʔŋonənuʔ
Pl2tɨŋnanduʔnanuntuʔnagətənduʔnamənunduʔtɨlʲiatiʔŋonəntuʔ
Pl3sɨtɨŋnanduŋnanuntuŋnagətənduŋnamənunduŋsɨlʲiatɨŋŋonəntuŋ

Verbs

Verbs agree with their subjects in person and number, and have three conjugation types. Like other Samoyedic languages, Nganasan has the opposition of perfective and imperfective verbs.
Conjugation
The subjective conjugation is used when there is no object or the object is focused. The objective conjugation is used with transitive words. The reflexive conjugation is used for some intransitive verbs. Each conjugation type has its own personal endings. There are three subtypes of objective conjugation endings that correspond to object number.
Mood
Nganasan has a broad mood paradigm with nine forms: indicative, imperative, interrogative, inferential, renarrative, irrealis, optative, admissive-cohortive, debitive, abessive and prohibitive. Mood forms are mostly built with the help of affixation but special particles are also sometimes used. All mood forms, except the imperative, have the same personal suffixes. Tenses are distinguished in the indicative, imperative and interrogative moods.
Aspect and tense
Most corresponding imperfective and perfective stems have the same root, but in rare cases the roots can be different. The aspectual opposition between imperfective and perfective verbs remains semantic in most verbal forms. However, in the indicative mood it is used to express present continuous and present perfect meanings, respectively. In this case, the opposition is present formally: imperfective verbs take imperfective suffixes and the perfective ones have the perfective suffixes. Imperfective verbs can also express future meanings. These forms are not considered tense in the strict sense. The proper tense forms of past and future include past, past perfect, future, future-in-the past.
Non-finite verb forms
FormationExample
Present participleS1'-NTUəkoðutuə "which was killed ~ which has been killed"
Preterite participle S1-SUə-Dʲəəkotudʲüədʲəə "which killed ~ which was killed"
Future participleS1'-ʔSUTəkoðuʔsutə "which will kill ~ which will be killed"
Future-in-the-past participleS1'-ʔSUTə-Dʲəəkotumətumaʔa "which has not killed ~ which has not been killed"
Preterite abessive participleS1-MəTUMA̩ʔA̩̥-Dʲəəkotumətumaʔdʲəə "which did not kill ~ which was not killed"
Passive participleS1-Məəkotuməə "killed"
Preterite passive participleS1-Məə-Dʲəəkotuməədʲəə "which was killed"

FormationExample
Verbal adverbS1-SAkotudʲa 'having killed', nʲisɪ̈ kotudʲa "having not killed"
Verbal adverb of immediate precedenceS1-KAJ-SAkotugasʲa "having just killed"
Conditional-temporal verbal adverbS1-HÜʔkotubüʔ " to kill', kotubɪ̈nə 'if ~ when I kill", etc.
Preterite temporal verbal adverbS1-HÜʔ-ə)-Px)kotubüʔə "when killed', kotubüʔəmə "when I killed", etc.
Future conditional verbal adverbS1-HÜʔ-NÜ-Px2kotubününə "if I will kill"

FormationExample
Imperfective verbal nounS1-MUNkotumu
sG kotumunə hireə "worth killing"
sLat niimsiəm kotomundə "I was afraid to kill"
sEla + s1 kotumuətənə "so that I do not kill", etc.
Perfective verbal noun-ʔMUəkoðaʔmuə ~ koðuʔmuə
sLoc + s1 koðaʔmuəntənunə "where I killed", etc.
Preterite verbal nounS1'-NTUkoðutu
sLat koðutundə "when killed"
koðutundənə "when I killed"
SupineS1'-NAKəkotunakə
s3 kotunagətu "in order that he killed", etc.

Syntax

Word order

The dominating word order in Nganasan is SOV, similar to other Samoyedic languages. However, Nganasan is considered to exhibit more freedom in word order than other languages of its group. According to Tereščenko, other types of word orders are used for shifting the sentence focus, especially in emphatic speech. The focused constituent usually immediately precedes the verb. Wagner-Nagy suggests that Nganasan is similar to Hungarian in its behavior, in that its word order is determined by pragmatic factors rather than being fixed.
On the phrase level, the attributes within the noun phrase usually precede the noun and become focused when placed after it. Numerals and adjectives agree with the heads in case, and adjectives also agree with the head in number. The case agreement is only complete in grammatical cases; in locative cases the attribute gets genitive form. There are no prepositions in Nganasan, postpositions are composite parts of words and also require the attributes in genitive cases. Possession is expressed with genitive construction or by a possessive suffix attached to the possessed.
Nganasan is a pro-drop language: pronominal subjects are often omitted when the verb conjugation type is subjective.

Negation

Standard negation is expressed by negative auxiliary followed by the main verb in connegative form marked with ʔ, e.g. ńi-ndɨ-m konɨʔ "I do not go". All inflectional markers are taken by the negation auxiliary. Objects in the form of personal, negative or demonastrative pronouns can be inserted between the negative auxiliary and the main verb. There are a few negative verbs other than ni-, such as kasa — "nearly", ləði — "vainly", əku — "maybe", and ŋuəli — "of course", but their functionality is restricted, with only ni- having a full paradigm.
Existential sentences are negated with the negative existential predicate d'aŋku or its derivative stem d'anguj-. D'aŋku can only be used in present indicative as it behaves like a noun: it takes nominal predicative endings. D'anguj- is used for all other tense/mood combinations.

Subordination

Subordination is typically formed by constructions with non-finite verbal forms. Such constructions are usually placed before the constituents they modify. The relative construction is always placed immediately before the modified constituent, whereas other types of constructions allow other constituents to interfere. The word order in such construction is the same as in simple sentences.

Coordination

Coordination is most often achieved by means of intonation. Sometimes pronominal and adverbial derivatives can be used as conjunctions. For example, adverb ŋonə 'also' can be used as conjunction. The category of conjunctions may be undergoing formation under the influence of Russian.

Literature