Chífjaeśí, The Gigxkpoyan Black Sheep

[loglorn]

Chífjaeśí

Chífjaeśí and it's closest sister, Phifkuxqni are phonological an grammatical outliers within the Gigxkpoyan branches, being SVO, both displaying large vowel inventories and unusual features, such as a Bantu-like gender system.

Phonology

1. Consonants

Chífjaeśí has a sizable consonant inventory. It preserved PG's three plosive series:

/p t ʈ t͡ʃ k/ <p t ṯ c k>
/pʰ tʰ ʈʰ t͡ʃʰ kʰ/ <ph th ṯh ch kh>
/p' t' ʈ' t͡ʃ' k'/ <b d ḏ q g>
/m n ɳ ɲ ŋ/ <m n ṉ ń ŋ>
/f v s z ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ x/ <f v s z ṣ ẕ ś ź x>
/j w/ <j w>

The approximants, especially /j/ are overwhelmingly common, /j/ alone accounts for 32% of all consonants. The five more common ones are /j w t t͡ʃ p/

Nasal and voiced fricatives are rare. Nasal codas never occur after short vowels.

2. Vowels and Diphthongs

Chífjaeśí distinguishes five short vowels, seven long vowels and 7 diphthongs:

/i ɨ ə o u/ <i y a o u>
/iː eː ɨː əː aː oː uː/ <í é ý ǎ á ó ú>
/æ͡e ɞ͡ʏ ɒ͡o ɪ͡ə ʏ͡œ o͡ɵ ɛ͡ɔ/ <ae oy ao ie yo oe eo>

A stressed syllable may only have diphthongs or long vowels, while an unstressed one may only display long or short vowels. The long schwa only occurs in stressed syllables.

This descends from an earlier 7 vowel system with short, long and overlong variants. As some chain shifts operated independently in each length and some of the short vowels merged (namely /ə a e/), it's hard to even see the correspondences between them at this point.

3. Phonotactics

Chífjaeśí allows clusters of up to 3 consonants, but such big clusters are rare. Having no coda is commonplace, having no onset happens too, albeit much more rarely.

Onset

Onsets may be of one of the following structures:

C(V) - Any sole consonant
PP(V) - Two plosives
PF(V) - A plosive followed by a fricative
SA(V) - A stop (plosive or nasal) followed by an approximant
PFA(V) - Plosive + Fricative + Approximant
FF(V) - Fricative + Fricative
FA(V) - Fricative + Approximant

The Fricative initial clusters never occur root initially.

Coda

Codas may be of the following structures:

(V)C - Any consonant
(V)AP - Approximant + Plosive
(V)FP - Fricative + Plosive
(V)PF - Plosive + Fricative
(V)AFP - Approximant + Fricative + Plosive
(V)APF - Approximant + Plosive + Fricative

The maximal syllable would then be PFAVAFP or PFAVAPF, but the maximal onset and the maximal codas are not attested together.

One can see it mostly follows sonority hierarchy, with the exception fricatives may occur after plosives in coda.

Stress

Stress is word initial, with the exception gender prefixes are never stressed. That exception happens to catch all nouns and most adjective forms, making them have stress in the second syllable. The word chífjaeśí /t͡ʃʰiːfˈjæ͡eɕiː/, has stress on the second syllable.

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I think that was the longest thing i've ever wrote on phonology. Noun posts will be more interesting this time. The North Wind and the Sun text may take some time, because i still need to decide which noun goes with each class.

[DesEsseintes]

I like the detailed analysis of the phonotactics. In all, well organised and thought out. The vowel inventory is pretty too.

This descends from an earlier 7 vowel system with short, long and overlong variants. As some chain shifts operated independently in each length and some of the short vowels merged (namely /ə a e/), it's hard to even see the correspondences between them at this point.

Would you mind sharing the details of this chain shift? I'm obsessed with chain shifts at the moment and can't get enough of them.

chain shifts, chain shifts, chain shifts...

I have a glide chain shift...

[loglorn]

I like the detailed analysis of the phonotactics. In all, well organised and thought out. The vowel inventory is pretty too.

This descends from an earlier 7 vowel system with short, long and overlong variants. As some chain shifts operated independently in each length and some of the short vowels merged (namely /ə a e/), it's hard to even see the correspondences between them at this point.

Would you mind sharing the details of this chain shift? I'm obsessed with chain shifts at the moment and can't get enough of them.

chain shifts, chain shifts, chain shifts...

I have a glide chain shift...

I'd have to go there and actually decipher my sca2. Ṣatt has better documented chain shifts. I might have more on that tomorrow.

[loglorn]

In case someone wants to compare them to Retla or Tlapthuv's, here are the numbers:

1 - áqí (when modifying something) | í (when counting)
2 - wao
3 - ńoy
4 - bao
5 - joe
6 - jéw
7 - ák
8 - wát
9 - kówp
10 - ábu

(I won't have the text for a while, so i needed at least something to mind boggle you)

Edit: And a whole bunch of kudos to whoever finds out what is áqí cognate to in Retla and/or Tlapthuv

[shimobaatar]

Chífjaeśí and it's closest sister, Phifkuxqni are phonological an grammatical outliers within the Gigxkpoyan branches, being SVO, both displaying large vowel inventories and unusual features, such as a Bantu-like gender system.

Sounds cool!

It preserved PG's three plosive series:

Oh, so are its outlier qualities conservative or innovative? I would have assumed the latter, but this statement makes me suspect the former, so to speak.

/p t ʈ t͡ʃ k/ <p t ṯ c k>
/pʰ tʰ ʈʰ t͡ʃʰ kʰ/ <ph th ṯh ch kh>
/p' t' ʈ' t͡ʃ' k'/ <b d ḏ q g>

That's quite an unusual, yet interesting way to romanize these sounds!

Nasal and voiced fricatives are rare.

Nasal codas never occur after short vowels. Ejectives are not distinguished word-finally

Just to clarify, /m n ɳ ɲ ŋ v z ʐ ʑ/ are the least common sounds in the language? Also, what are ejectives not distinguished from word-finally, aspirated or plain stops (or something else)?

Chífjaeśí distinguishes five short vowels, seven long vowels and 7 diphthongs:

/i ɨ ə o u/ <i y a o u>
/iː eː ɨː əː aː oː uː/ <í é ý ǎ á ó ú>
/æ͡e ɞ͡ʏ ɒ͡o ɪ͡ə ʏ͡œ o͡ɵ ɛ͡ɔ/ <ae oy ao ie yo oe eo>

A stressed syllable may only have diphthongs or long vowels, while an unstressed one may only display long or short vowels. The long schwa only occurs in stressed syllables.

This descends from an earlier 7 vowel system with short, long and overlong variants. As some chain shifts operated independently in each length and some of the short vowels merged (namely /ə a e/), it's hard to even see the correspondences between them at this point.

I agree with DesEsseintes; this is beautiful. I'd be interested in a more detailed description of the shifts as well, but take your time, of course!

Chífjaeśí allows clusters of up to 3 consonants, but such big clusters are rare, and never occur in coda position.

Codas may be of the following structures:

(V)C - Any consonant
(V)AP - Approximant + Plosive
(V)FP - Fricative + Plosive
(V)PF - Plosive + Fricative
(V)AFP - Approximant + Fricative + Plosive
(V)APF - Approximant + Plosive + Fricative

If clusters of 3 consonants never occur in syllable codas, why are (V)AFP and (V)APF listed as options?

The Fricative initial clusters never occur root initially.

When might they occur, then?

Stress is word initial, with the exception gender prefixes are never stressed. That exception happens to catch all nouns and most adjective forms, making them have stress in the second syllable. The word chífjaeśí /t͡ʃiːfˈjæ͡eɕiː/, has stress on the second syllable.

Oh, very interesting!

The North Wind and the Sun text may take some time, because i still need to decide which noun goes with each class.

Take however much time you need! I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Ṣatt has better documented chain shifts. I might have more on that tomorrow.

1 - áqí (when modifying something) | í (when counting)

Would it be possible to see an example or two of the differences in how these two might be used?

[loglorn]

Chífjaeśí and it's closest sister, Phifkuxqni are phonological an grammatical outliers within the Gigxkpoyan branches, being SVO, both displaying large vowel inventories and unusual features, such as a Bantu-like gender system.

Sounds cool!

It preserved PG's three plosive series:

Oh, so are its outlier qualities conservative or innovative? I would have assumed the latter, but this statement makes me suspect the former, so to speak.

Both really, they are the only to preserve the ejectives as ejectives (some other preserve them distinct but as a gemination thing), but they are also the only to have innovated SVO order, or noun classes, or some interesting differential subject marking stuff.

/p t ʈ t͡ʃ k/ <p t ṯ c k>
/pʰ tʰ ʈʰ t͡ʃʰ kʰ/ <ph th ṯh ch kh>
/p' t' ʈ' t͡ʃ' k'/ <b d ḏ q g>

That's quite an unusual, yet interesting way to romanize these sounds!

I was tired of apostrophes. I know <q> for /t͡ʃ'/ is unconventional, but it reminds me of pínyín (which i'm not sure is a good thing, since that's a really oddball romanization), and using the more logical <j> would have needed me to change too much in other places.

Nasal and voiced fricatives are rare.

Nasal codas never occur after short vowels. Ejectives are not distinguished word-finally

Just to clarify, /m n ɳ ɲ ŋ v z ʐ ʑ/ are the least common sounds in the language? Also, what are ejectives not distinguished from word-finally, aspirated or plain stops (or something else)?

Yea. And ejectives are not distinguished from plain plosives. Just edited that on the post proper.

Chífjaeśí distinguishes five short vowels, seven long vowels and 7 diphthongs:

/i ɨ ə o u/ <i y a o u>
/iː eː ɨː əː aː oː uː/ <í é ý ǎ á ó ú>
/æ͡e ɞ͡ʏ ɒ͡o ɪ͡ə ʏ͡œ o͡ɵ ɛ͡ɔ/ <ae oy ao ie yo oe eo>

A stressed syllable may only have diphthongs or long vowels, while an unstressed one may only display long or short vowels. The long schwa only occurs in stressed syllables.

This descends from an earlier 7 vowel system with short, long and overlong variants. As some chain shifts operated independently in each length and some of the short vowels merged (namely /ə a e/), it's hard to even see the correspondences between them at this point.

I agree with DesEsseintes; this is beautiful. I'd be interested in a more detailed description of the shifts as well, but take your time, of course!

Thanks! It's always nice to hear some nice stuff.

Chífjaeśí allows clusters of up to 3 consonants, but such big clusters are rare, and never occur in coda position.

Codas may be of the following structures:

(V)C - Any consonant
(V)AP - Approximant + Plosive
(V)FP - Fricative + Plosive
(V)PF - Plosive + Fricative
(V)AFP - Approximant + Fricative + Plosive
(V)APF - Approximant + Plosive + Fricative

If clusters of 3 consonants never occur in syllable codas, why are (V)AFP and (V)APF listed as options?

And i contradicted myself. Just corrected that in the original post.

The Fricative initial clusters never occur root initially.

When might they occur, then?

They in syllables that are not the first of the root. The first syllable of the root may not coincide with the first of the word because the gender prefixes are not considered. Even then they are quite rare, because they needed some 4+ consonant clusters in PG to happen. I don't think i have any FF cluster for example. They may happen more in compounded nouns, since those tend to bring lots of consonants together.

For example, the ś in Chífjaeśí, from earlier xj, is the ultimate result of PG *kxq'n

1 - áqí (when modifying something) | í (when counting)

Would it be possible to see an example or two of the differences in how these two might be used?

When 'one' is modifying something, like, say, 'one dog', áqí is used:

áqí jywxtjoek
One dog

When just naming the numbers, counting in your fingers and such, í is used:

í.. wao... ńoy...
One.. two.. three..

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Now that i think of it, Chífjaeśí phrases/texts are probably quite verbose. Gonna be sure of that after i actually pin down the text.

[shimobaatar]

I was tired of apostrophes. I know <q> for /t͡ʃ'/ is unconventional, but it reminds me of pínyín (which i'm not sure is a good thing, since that's a really oddball romanization), and using the more logical <j> would have needed me to change too much in other places.

Understandable, definitely. I quite like the way it looks.

They in syllables that are not the first of the root. The first syllable of the root may not coincide with the first of the word because the gender prefixes are not considered. Even then they are quite rare, because they needed some 4+ consonant clusters in PG to happen. I don't think i have any FF cluster for example. They may happen more in compounded nouns, since those tend to bring lots of consonants together.

For example, the ś in Chífjaeśí, from earlier xj, is the ultimate result of PG *kxq'n

Oh, of course, I'm not sure why I didn't think of that. Thanks for the explanation!

[loglorn]

A minor correction to the phonology post, but today while working on the making of an actual Chífjaeśí lexicon, i noticed that some weird clusters in PG can generate word final ejectives, and there'll probably be a minimal pair somewhere, so i'll delete the part about ejectives not being distinguished from plain word finally

[loglorn]

Chýxíj chýŋúg gúw Jákwaos (The North Wind and the Sun)

Spoiler:

/t͡ʃʰɨːˈxiːj t͡ʃʰɨːˈŋuːk' k'uːw jaːˈkwɒ͡os/

Jákwaos gúw chýxíj chýŋúg tṣeoṯchu jé ńaechu chu chuḏícixaw ktjǎjdju, jaokhjwojypkhu khujújý ṯzvaoṯkhu jé túwẕoe túwjǎw. Chu jíjipchu ńaechu chu chuḏícixaw ktjǎjdju chu jaeśiwchu jé gaegudajchu jé khujújý cao túwẕoe.

Chýxíj chýŋúg júpchý jé caechý. Chýxíj chýŋúg thǎjvupchý jaokhsajvupchý. jújchý chýcíj ṯoeschý khujújý ktjǎjt ńápchu jé wúsydakhu khujújý jé túwẕoe cao chukhów jae khu ktjǎjt jae woeṯchu. Chýxíj chýŋúg jépchý jé caechý. Jákwaos júpjá jé caejá. Jákwaos chaetśypjá jaokhśátśypjá, khujújý jaokhxágupkhu jé túwẕoe. Chýxíj chýŋúg jíjip jé ńaejá jákwaos ḏícixawgju ktjǎjdju.

Spoiler:

/jaːˈkwɒ͡os k'uːw t͡ʃʰɨːˈxiːj t͡ʃʰɨːˈŋuːk' ˈtʂɛ͡ɔʈt͡ʃʰu jeː ˈɲæ͡et͡ʃʰu t͡ʃʰu t͡ʃʰuˈʈ'iːt͡ʃixəw ˈktjəːjt'ju | ˈjɒ͡okʰjwojɨpkʰu kʰuˈjuːjɨː ˈʈzvɒ͡oʈkʰu jeː tuːwˈʐo͡ɵ tuːwˈjəːw ‖ t͡ʃʰu ˈjiːjipt͡ʃʰu ɲæ͡et͡ʃʰu t͡ʃʰu t͡ʃʰuˈʈ'iːt͡ʃixaw ktjəːjt'ju t͡ʃʰu ˈjæ͡eɕiwt͡ʃʰu jeː ˈk'æ͡ek'ut'ajt͡ʃʰu jeː kʰuˈjuːjɨː t͡ʃɒ͡o tuːwˈʐo͡ɵ ‖

t͡ʃʰɨːˈxiːj t͡ʃʰɨːˈŋuːk' ˈjuːpt͡ʃʰɨː jeː ˈt͡ʃæ͡et͡ʃʰɨː ‖ t͡ʃʰɨːˈxiːj t͡ʃʰɨːˈŋuːk' ˈtʰəːjvupt͡ʃʰɨː ˈjɒ͡okʰsəjvupt͡ʃʰɨː ‖ ˈjuːjt͡ʃʰɨː t͡ʃʰɨːˈt͡ʃiːj ʈo͡ɵs kʰuˈjuːjɨː ktjəːjt ˈɲaːpt͡ʃʰu jeː ˈwuːsɨt'akʰu kʰuˈjuːjɨː jeː tuːwˈʐo͡ɵ t͡ʃɒ͡o t͡ʃʰuˈkʰoːw jæ͡e kʰu ktjəːjt jæ͡e wo͡ɵʈt͡ʃʰu ‖ t͡ʃʰɨːˈxiːj t͡ʃʰɨːˈŋuːk' ˈjeːpt͡ʃɨː ˈt͡ʃæ͡et͡ʃɨː ‖ jaːˈkwɒ͡os ˈjuːpjaː jeː ˈt͡ʃæ͡ejaː ‖ jaːˈkwɒ͡os ˈt͡ʃʰæ͡etɕɨpjaː ˈjɒ͡okʰɕaːtɕɨpjaː | kʰuˈjuːjɨː ˈjɒ͡okʰxaːk'upkʰu jeː tuːwˈʐo͡ɵ ‖ t͡ʃʰɨːˈxiːj t͡ʃʰɨːˈŋuːk' ˈjiːjip jeː ˈɲæ͡ejaː jaːˈkwɒ͡os ˈʈ'iːt͡ʃixawk'ju ˈktjəːjt'ju/

The sun and the north wind were arguing over who was strongest, when a traveler with a warm cloak came along. They agreed that the strongest would be who was able to make the traveler take off the cloak.

The north wind went to try first. The north wind blew and blew. The more the breath went at the traveler, the more the traveler drew the cloak around himself. The north wind finished trying. The sun started to try. The sun shone and shone, and the traveler removed the cloak. The north wind agreed that the sun was strongest.

---

Something to warm the thread after a month of inactivity, it's by no means final because there are many details yet to decide. I even did IPA this time.

[shimobaatar]

I love the look of the text, and thank you for taking the time to include an IPA version! Chífjaeśí definitely looks quite different from Retla and Tlapthuv, but there are some subtle similarities between them that I can't explain. Looking forward to more about this language and its relatives at some point in the future!

[loglorn]

Nouns Part 1: Class

Nouns in Chífjaeśí have one of 11 classes (genders), and realize case related stuff through prepositions.

Classes

Classes are marked by always unstressed affixes (prefixes in Nouns and Adjectives and suffixes in Verbs). What falls in each gender shows regularity, but in some cases it just doesn't make sense.

Class I

The first class, marked by khu-, refers to humans and things referring to humans.

Examples:

khuwáw: brother
khukhów: person
khudśae: name (having a name is seen as characteristic to people)

Class II

Mostly about children, but there are many example that don't particularly make sense.

qijújt: grandchild
qibwák: child
qixyojajst: shadow (which can't really be explained)

Class III

This class quite straightforwardly refers to animals.

dwugeo: cat
dwujǎj: animal
dwutjoek: wolf

Class IV

This, and a few other classes, relate to shape. Things that are more or less long and thin usually belong here.

pjochae: tree
pjojoep: bone
pjojácé: story (The most oddball example of this class)

Class V

Relates to round things (even though some of the examples are not that round)

jákwaos: sun
jágǎjẕ: cave
jáqákhz: root (actually not that round)

Class VI

For objects that are thin an likely to have a large area (compared to their thinness)

túwtwoe: leaf
túwqiejá: plains
túwtwǎt: ashes

Class VII

This is something of a leftover class with poorly defined semantics. Abstract concepts tend to end up here.

chunówp: trap
chukjǎt: sound
chupwyo: speed

Class VIII

This class comprises very big objects (like mountains) and thing (mostly natural phenomena) deemed dangerous (such as fire and storms).

sithaop: mountain
sipxǎw: fire
sigeo: storm

This class is also used to derive collectives out of other nouns:

sikhów: crowd < khukhów (person, man)
sichae: forest < pjochae (tree)
sijeox: flock < dwujeox (bird)

Class IX

A more or less straightforward class about places (which tends to comprise temporal terms).

chífjaeśí: island
chífchoyf: place
chífcéxýṯ: morning

Class X

A diminutive class, with mostly derivational words. It is also related to some politeness business.

jywpoep: butterfly
jywtjoek: dog < dwutjoek (wolf)
jywkpeo: kitten < dwukpeo (cat)

Class XI

An augmentative class, with mostly derivational words. It is also related to some politeness business (more on that in the Verb posts).

gíkjéju: father
gígeo: hurricane < sigeo (storm)
gídǎj: weather

The actual form of this affix is gík, but the 'k' is not realized if the following root starts in a plosive.

Class Changes

Changing the class of a given root may or may not be derivational, even within a single root:

Take for example khúw, meaning man. The 'prototypical' class of that root is khukhów, man. If, say, someone used jywkhów and gíkhów, those would simply mean, respectively, 'small man' and 'large man'. But:

khukhów: man, person
chukhów: body
dwukhów: corpse

Changes in Class are a very powerful derivation mechanism in Chífjaeśí.

[shimobaatar]

Nouns in Chífjaeśí have one of 11 classes (genders), and realize case related stuff through prepositions.

Awesome!

Mostly about children, but there are many example that don't particularly make sense.

qijújt: grandchild
qibwák: child
qixyojajst: shadow (which can't really be explained)

Is this "child" in the sense of "offspring", "young person", both, or something else?

It is also related to some politeness business (more on that in the Verb posts).

Looking forward to hearing more about that, as well as more about the prepositions mentioned above!

[loglorn]

Mostly about children, but there are many example that don't particularly make sense.

qijújt: grandchild
qibwák: child
qixyojajst: shadow (which can't really be explained)

Is this "child" in the sense of "offspring", "young person", both, or something else?

Both

It is also related to some politeness business (more on that in the Verb posts).

Looking forward to hearing more about that, as well as more about the prepositions mentioned above!

The prepositions will feature the next post. The politeness deal will take a while though.

---

If you haven't noticed yet by their semantics, the Class affixes are mostly cognate to Retla/Tlapthuv quantifiers.

[loglorn]

Nouns Part 2: Adpositions

Here Adpositions will be dealt with. Chífjaeśí realizes all case related processes with adpositions.

1. Core Cases and Alignment

Intransitive clause

jákwaos chaetśáṯjá
g5-sun shine-PROG-g5
the sun is shining

As can be seen, the noun here is unmarked, that's the Nominative.

Transitive clause

In transitive clauses, the agent is unmarked, and the object is marked as Accusative (needless to say, Chífjaeśí is nominative-accusative)

jae jépkhu jy chuchéjýqoy chukwoev
1PS get.g1 ACC g7-scar g7-new
i got a new scar

Ditransitive clause

Verbs intrinsically ditransitive, such as kfǎj give, have the Subject unmarked, the Recipient marked as accusative and the Theme marked as dechticaetiative.

qí kfǎpqi jy jae cý jájao
3.g2 give-g2 ACC 1PS DECH g5
she gave me an orange

Causative clause

The causative clause is a ditransitive clause, but it bears the difference that the verb is not normally ditransitive, but has been instead affected by a valency changing operation, the causative. In such clauses we have the Causer as Nominative, the Causee as Instrumental and the Object as Accusative.

khu zwédapkhu thjú jae jy jájao
3.g1 search-CAUS-g1 INS 1PS ACC orange
He made me search for oranges

2. Peripheral Prepositions

thjú can also be used as comitative:

jae thjú gíkjéju wúwudaschu
1PS COM g11-father fish-PFV-g7
I fish with my father

Possession is marked by the Genitive já.

chudǎjp ńaeṯchu já jae
g7-axe COP-PROG-g7 GEN 1PS
the axe is mine

Note that origin (men of rome) and composition (piece of cake, group of men) are not marked by já, but by ṯús.

khukhów ṯús jéwtjap
g1-person LAT mainland
People from the mainland

(Chífjaeśí is spoken in an island, and jéwtjap is borrowed from Tlapthuv Revtlap

ṯús is typically Lative, used in a very general sense of motion.

khu joeṯkhu ṯús sińoy
3.g1 walk-PROG-g1 LAT g8-sea
He's walking to/from/by/along the sea

It can also be used in temporal notions:

khu zwépkhu jy chu ṯús ńoy chukwaos
3.g1 search-g1 ACC 3.g7 LAT three g7-day
He searched for it for three days

txat, in the other hand, is Locative, used for unspecific positioning.

khu ńaeṯkhu txat chífcaejú
3.g1 COP-PROG-g1 LOC g9-house
He is in/at/on/around the house

jý is one of several more specific Locative/Lative prepositions. This one is mostly translatable as 'on top (of)'.

jae jágapkhu jy dwuphao jý chífcaejú já jae
1PS find-PFV-g1 ACC g3-fox on.top.of g9-house GEN 1PS
I found a fox on top of my house

It can also be translated as 'above' or 'over' because the two things need not be necessarily touching each other.

dwujeox jájypdwu jý pjochae pǎwpjo
g3-bird fly-PFV-g3 above g4-tree pǎw-g4
The bird flew over trees abound

paw can be translated as either after or behind, having both spatial and temporal meanings.

qí jépqi paw pjochae paw bśyoqi
3.g2 hide-PFV-g2 behind g4-tree after cry-INF-g2
she hid behind a tree after crying

ptoj also displays both spatial and temporal meanings

jae ńápjyw ptoj khukhów ptoj nýjgík
1PS COP-PFV-g10 before g1-man before die-INF-g11
i stood before the man before he died

There are a few other locational prepositions:

kjujṣ áw cú jágǎjẕ?
inside or outside g5-cave
inside or outside the cave?

chý ńaeṯchu khcá dwukhów já dwutjoek
3.g7 COP-PROG-g7 below g3-man GEN g3-wolf
It's under the wolf's corpse

And the benefactive wúṯ

3. Other Constructions

There is an interesting construction where the noun is modified by a preposition agreeing in gender, which occupies the slot where adjectives would be, even though it doesn't exactly work like an adjective. Also, adjectives cannot be used alongside this construction. It is restricted to a somewhat small set of prepositions:

ṯús (lative), paw (after), cú (outside), jý (on top) and já (genitive).

In this specific case, the prepositions have stressed variants:

ṯoes, pǎw, coe, jao and jae, respectively.

ṯoes-GENDER denotes a partitive, some of.

sikhów ṯoessi jéxidapsi
g8-man ṯoes-g8 disband-PFV-g8
some of the crowd disbanded

pǎw-GENDER is the closest to a plural Chífjaeśí gets, as it's used to show large, often exaggerate, quantities.

dwujeox jájypdwu jý pjochae pǎwpjo
g3-bird fly-PFV-g3 above g4-tree pǎw-g4
The bird flew over trees abound

coe-GENDER negates nouns. Caritive seems to be an appropriate term.

jae ṯýpkhu chuwýt coechu
1PS eat-PFV-g1 g7-meat coe-g7
I ate no meat

It says nothing about whether i ate or not, but, if i did, it most certainly was not meat.

jao-GENDER is rather hard to explain. It is a nearly perfect translation of Japanese XX wa mochiron construction.

jae ṯýpkhu jy chuwýt jaochu thjú chujeox
1PS eat-PFV-g1 ACC g7-fish jao-g7 COM g7-bird
Apart from (obviously) fish, i also ate bird(meat)

jae-GENDER is restricted to marking reflexives, where the verb must also be passivized.

qí jaeqi psýjopqi
3.g2 jae-g2 wash-PASS-PFV-g2
she washed herself

---

I honestly have no idea how to gloss the things featured in the last section.

[shimobaatar]

ṯús is typically Lative, used in a very general sense of motion.

khu joeṯkhu ṯús sińoy
3.g1 walk-PROG-g1 LAT g8-sea
He's walking to/from/by/along the sea

txat, in the other hand, is Locative, used for unspecific positioning.

khu ńaeṯkhu txat chífcaejú
3.g1 COP-PROG-g1 LOC g9-house
He is in/at/on/around the house

Are there any ways to make these more specific without using different prepositions?

ṯoes-GENDER denotes a partitive, some of.

pǎw-GENDER is the closest to a plural Chífjaeśí gets, as it's used to show large, often exaggerate, quantities.

coe-GENDER negates nouns. Caritive seems to be an appropriate term.

jao-GENDER is rather hard to explain. It is a nearly perfect translation of Japanese XX wa mochiron construction.

jae-GENDER is restricted to marking reflexives, where the verb must also be passivized.

I honestly have no idea how to gloss the things featured in the last section.

I don't know about "jao-", but how about:

"ṯoes-" = PART or PTV
"pǎw-" = PL
"coe-" = NEG or CAR
"jae-" = REFL

[loglorn]

ṯús is typically Lative, used in a very general sense of motion.

khu joeṯkhu ṯús sińoy
3.g1 walk-PROG-g1 LAT g8-sea
He's walking to/from/by/along the sea

txat, in the other hand, is Locative, used for unspecific positioning.

khu ńaeṯkhu txat chífcaejú
3.g1 COP-PROG-g1 LOC g9-house
He is in/at/on/around the house

Are there any ways to make these more specific without using different prepositions?

Not really, and while there are other more specific adpositions they are seldom used.

ṯoes-GENDER denotes a partitive, some of.

pǎw-GENDER is the closest to a plural Chífjaeśí gets, as it's used to show large, often exaggerate, quantities.

coe-GENDER negates nouns. Caritive seems to be an appropriate term.

jao-GENDER is rather hard to explain. It is a nearly perfect translation of Japanese XX wa mochiron construction.

jae-GENDER is restricted to marking reflexives, where the verb must also be passivized.

I honestly have no idea how to gloss the things featured in the last section.

I don't know about "jao-", but how about:

"ṯoes-" = PART or PTV
"pǎw-" = PL
"coe-" = NEG or CAR
"jae-" = REFL

Good glosses indeed.

What's most interesting is that i've concluded those form a new part of speech, since they don't pattern with anything else in Chífjaeśí.

[shimobaatar]

Good glosses indeed.

What's most interesting is that i've concluded those form a new part of speech, since they don't pattern with anything else in Chífjaeśí.

Thank you! And that is very interesting!