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[moonflower77]

Affirmative function

In the Nivkh language, an action, state, quality, quantity, the existence of persons, objects or phenomena are expressed through different affirmative words. Understood in the more conventional sense, these are verbs; however, there are also words that can be describes as nominals with an affirmative marker, as well as figurative words.

Names with the affirmative suffix –ta ~ -ra ~ -da as a predicative marker may be used to formulate an assertion, proposition or opinion: ni niγyvyŋta, hund lоčаrа “I am a Nivkh, that one is a Russian”; ni nalxyta-vonyŋtа “I am an inhabitant of the village in the middle of the bay”; an pʰму-vоdʲŋа? ivdа “who took my boat? he (did)”; nira “I am”; jaŋsř nixkund-ŋа? čʰахř niγyvyŋ hara, nʲan niγyvyŋtа “why are (you sg.) afraid me? you are a human being after all, and I also am human”; ni pal niγyvyŋtа “I am a forest man”.

If there are several verbs in the sentence, only the main verb can function as a predicate and  take the appropriate form, whereas the others can take the form of verbal participles.

Processive (verb)

Animists used to express their perception of all things as alive and personified is expressed grammatically using the suffix -nt ~ -d ~ -t - ~tʲ ~ -dʲ. As noted before, the element –n plays an attributive, or, to be more preise, an attributive-affirmative role, while the element -t ~ -d ~ -dʲ ~ -tʲ functions as the object marker. Accordingly, words of this category confirm the meaning conveyed by the stem. For example: pagd "to be red" (modern form and meaning) used to be deciphered earlier as "that (he, she, it)-existing-as-red; vidʲ "that-walking-being" (i.e. the object exists/is in a state of walking). Everything was perceived in a state of being, existing.

Processives are formed from stems referring to actions, states, processes, quality and quantity. In a spoken message, the meaning of these words can also be conveyed through auxiliary and semi-auxiliary verbs, which have the following grammatical categories: transitive, intransitive, mode of action, voice, mood.

Transitive verbs begin with the sounds v, z, γ, γ, f, r, s, x, х, intransitive verbs begin with the sounds  p, t, tʲ, k, k, pʰ, kʰ, kʰ. A considerable part of the latter can be transformed into transitive ones using the suffix -i- . The most ancient group of transient verbs have the nominative prefix j-, i-, e.

The location where an action occurs is referred to using the orientative nominal hus ~ hur. Examples: pykznt to be, get lost, vykznt to lose sth.; polnt (it, he, she) will fall, volunt to fell, throw down;  jardʲ  to feed sb.; iřpnt (he, she, it) is sitting on sth., hurtʰivnt (he, she, it) is sitting on this spot.

Personal markers are not yet fully formed. For instance, хаdʲ ″to shoot, fire (a gun)″ remains unchanged regardless of whether one says  ni хаdʲ ″i shot, fired/i shoot, fire″, čʰi хаdʲ ″you (sg.) shot, fired/you (sg.) shoot, fire″, nʲyŋ хаdʲ ″we shot, fired/we shoot, fire″, imŋ хаdʲ ″they shot, fired/they shoot, fire″; or, to take another example, ni vidʲ ″I went, walked/I am going, walking″, čʰi vidʲ ″you (sg.) went, walked/you (sg.) are going, walking″, nʲyŋ vidʲ ″we went, walked/we are going, walking″, imŋ vidʲ ″they went, walked/they are going, walking ″. Verbs are not conjugated except in the imperative and some forms of adverbial participles.

The singular and plural markers are irregular and the exact number can often be determined only if one takes into consideration the meaning and context.

Verbs have two tenses: the present-past and the future.  

The stem may be either simple or compound, which is easy to determine after one removes the suffix -nt, -d, -dʲ, -t, -tʲ. Simple stems may be original and derived, such as ra- ″to drink″, or inʲ- ″to eat″ and joz- ″to hunt seals in the pack ice in the sea″, jo- "ice pack, sheet of ice″, -z is a dead suffix used in the past to form verbs.

With the help of the suffixes -nt, -d, -dʲ, -t, -tʲ qualitative stems are transformed into intransitive verbs. They are distinguished from stems that refer to actions in that they can be complemented by the suffix -la-, -ly-: oγla fuvdʲ ″the child is blowing″; oγla ykiladʲ ″the child is bad″, where la-refers to the permanent presence of an attribute (property).

Qualitative processives behave as verbs in every respect and may refer to a quality, state, or to the attribute of a particular person, deed or phenomenon. This was why the abstract category of adjectives could not be formed; quite simply, there was no need for them.  Below we shall provide several examples using the stem pil- ~ -pila ″to be big, large″ in the position of a predicate or adverbial participle: nafat pʰаk pilantxun ″now (they/we) have become big, after all″; jаŋ pilindra ″he will be large″; eγŋur pilja! ″grow (up) fast (sg.)!″ pilхаjro! ″may (e, she, it) grow! (become larger); jаŋ pandr pilror, školrох wir pʰаskamind ″as he grows bigger, he will go to school, will study″; mеŋ piлŋа, rot lаřnut čʰо-sevnt ″the two of us, having become large together, watching the waves, speared the fish″; jan pandr pilхаj, sik ŋγvindra, tonxinyndra. ″as he grows up, when he becomes big, (he) will defeat everyone, will be strong″; nizun pʰехlаŋkаn pilfur itnt ″Nizun said of his child: ‘(he) has grown big’”.

Quantitative stems, like the qualitative ones, may be said to have a dual nature (in a certain sense). On the one hand, as we have already mentioned, these are numerals (nominals); but on the other, they can be converted into verbs using the suffix -nt, -d, -dʲ, -t, -tʲ and, in the latter case, behave as verbs. To illustrate, let us provide several examples with the numeral nenŋ ″one″ used to count human beings: ytʲх-nenŋ hunvnt ″there lived an old man″; ni ytx-nonŋdохwint ″I went to one old man’s (i.e. to visit/see one old man)″; řаŋk-menŋ ytx-nenŋd ″two monoandrous women (i.e. two women who share a single husband or two women who have one husband each)″; ″(the) two women will be monoandrous″; řаŋk-menŋ ytx-nenŋa, urt humd ″the two women lived well with (their) one husband″; řаŋk-menŋ ytx-nenŋхаj, ŋeidxun ″if two women have one husband, they will quarrel″.

The category of person

Personal narrative forms require special markers. If there are several consecutive verbs in the sentence and all of them refer to actions, they take one of the following personal-narrative markers: 

1^st p. sg.                                   2^nd, 3^rd p. sg.

1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd p. pl.

 Neutral -t, -n                                                  -r

Affirmative   -ta, -na                                      -ra 

Emotive       -te, ty                                          -re, -ry

 One may assume that a category of person used to exist in the language at one point, and that -t and -r are the remaining relic markers. All the personal-narrative markers are taken not only by homogeneous predicates, but by the finite predicate verb as well, as in, for example: meřn-ŋафq-nřyŋy, aulatr, qағjor, mifmif  tujhаŋkr, rukr, χоsqоzur 'When (the deer) saw our buddy, (the deer) began to cry, to whine, turned the ground into dust, bit (the ground with his teeth), shook (it)'.