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[moonflower77]

 Consonant alternation

Consonant alternation is connected to the syntactic peculiarities of the language. According to some scholars, the process may be used to trace the development of the sentence (spoken message) in prehistoric times. The following is a possible scenario. Since actions were always perceived by ancient humans as specific and directed at a particular object, the first to appear were the root morphemes referring to actions and to the objects these were directed at; at first, both may have been represented by the same undifferentiated morpheme, which contained an affricate sound and could have a nominal or a verbal meaning. Before the language developed the means to convey the full message, such a morpheme could have been reduplicated to form the most elementary sentence, consisting of the direct complement followed by the predicate. After the word order was grammaticalized, the affricate in the root disintegrated into a plosive and a fricative. The plosive, which occupied the first slot and corresponded to the direct complement (object), came to have a fixed nominal meaning; the fricative, which occupied the second slot and corresponded to the predicate (verb), came to have a fixed verbal meaning.

Thus, by reduplicating the ancient indefinite morpheme that resembled the modern word kʰ y “axe” and meant “stone, rock”, one could get kʰ y-kʰ y ″stone – to stone (do sth. with a stone)” = kʰ y-xu, which in turn would result in the words that came to mean “axe” and “to axe”. The word kʰ y “axe” became a noun stem, while xu became a verb stem, which in turn gave rise to such verbs as xyvdʲ ″to chop, to cut″, xyzdʲ ″to dig, to excavate″, xymzdʲ ″to bury, to dig in″ (v, z, mz are unproductive/dead suffixes that mean “to be”). This indicates that the modern word for axe, kʰ y, may have originated from the name of an ancient instrument akin to a hand-axe, which had many different functions and could be use to strike, chop, dig, bury and so on.

This was how ancient Nivkh developed plosives as initial noun sounds and fricatives as initial verb sounds. The hypothesis is confirmed by word pairs such as kʰavi ″snow″, xavdʲ ~ xavnt ″to snow″; kʰes ~ kʰеř ″news, message″, xezdʲ ~ xerd ″to talk, to speak″; kʰa″name″, хаudʲ ″to name, to call″; pʰuf ″saw″, fuvdʲ ″to saw″.

As the language developed, the nominal and verbal initial sounds formed a bipolar syntactic axis, which became the focal point for consonant alternation. The initial consonants at the nominal pole alternate under the influence of the attributive modifiers adjoined to the noun. The initial consonants at the verbal pole alternate under the influence of the complements adjoined to the verb.

From this, it follows that the alternation is caused not by the convergence of two sounds that are semantically rather than physiologically identical. If a final verbal t converges with an initial nominal t, alternation is not triggered and the two consonants can be found side by side, as in, for example, ni lyttyf ″a house made by myself″ (lyt + tyf). At the same time, if these are the final consonant of a noun and the initial consonant of another noun, alternation does occur: when put together, tutut ″turtledove″ and tyknʲ ″claw, talon″ yield tututryknʲ ″turtledove claw″ (tyknʲ is transformed into *ryknʲ).

Initial plosives                                  Initial fricatives

(nouns and intransitive verbs)          (transitive verbs)     

p ~ v ~ b ~ f               pʰ ~ f                         v ~ p ~ b ~ f         f ~ pʰ 

t ~ r ~ d ~ ř                tʰ ~ ř                                        r ~ t ~ d ~ ř        ř ~ tʰ

 tʲ ~ z ~ dʲ ~ s             čʰ ~ s                           z ~ tʲ ~ dʲ ~ s           s ~ čʰ

k ~ g ~ γ ~х               kʰ ~ х                           γ ~ k ~ ґ ~ х            х ~ kʰ

k ~ g ~ ґ ~ђ               kʰ ~ ђ                           γ ~ k ~ g ~ х           х ~ kʰ

 

In addition to these, one frequently encounters alternation between the consonants j ~ h.

The alternation between the initial voiceless plosives and voiced plosives or voiced fricatives is triggered by the final consonants l, m, n, nʲ, ŋ.

The consonant alternation does not always take place as one might expect judging from the current sounds, but, rather, corresponds to the so-called historical alternation. There was a time when all Nivkh nominals including proper names ended in n, ŋ, which is confirmed by a comparative-contrastive analysis of the Amur and Sakhalin dialects (words such as nivx - niγvŋ, ys - yzŋ and others). Although the words themselves have changed, their composition is still governed by the old law, as consonant alternation predates sonorant omission, and the consonants continue to alternate as they used to do in the older version of the word: piladu ″large lake″, hydyf ″this house″, pаγlabos ″red fabric″.

The table below clearly and unambiguously illustrates that alternation occurs between sounds that are physiologically related:

   /\        /\       /\          /\        /\

    r    pʰ               t      tʰ        tʲ   tʲʰ                k     kʰ          k     kʰ

   v     f                 r     ř         z       s              γ      х                     γ     х

   b                      d                 dʲ                            g          g

The fact that word-final fricatives trigger the appearance of an initial voiceless plosive in verbs, while sonorants trigger the appearance of an initial voiced plosive in nouns and verbs, shows that consonant alternation is in fact an echo of the ancient process where the affricates in proto-phonemes would disintegrate and give rise to phonemes. Moreover, it should be noted that each of the consonant series must have crystallized from a single main sound, though, of course, this would have happened gradually over a long time (after all, the voiced plosives b and d are still in the process of becoming proper phonemes).

Incorporation

A message the speaker believes to be relevant at the given moment is very often conveyed by combining two or more semantic units. The morphology of these combinations is completely dependent on the particulars of their semantic (meaning-bearing or meaning-changing) function. This is what lends such an extreme significance to the fact that the maximum meaning in a word is carried by the initial sound(s).

This is confirmed by the greater part of the vocabulary, such as, for example, ir ″father″ and yr ″time″, mа ″dried salted fish″ and ха ″trap (for game)″, vadʲ ″fights, struggles″ and fadʲ ″puts on footwear″, radʲ ″drinks″ and madʲ ″close, near″, kerdʲ ″does not want″ and pʰerdʲ ″gets tired, tires″, tu ″lake″ and řu ″sled″, eri ″river″ and yri ″behind″ and so forth.

The initial sounds of the second and subsequent words in the lexical complex no longer count as word-initial phonemes, which neutralizes their meaning-bearing and meaning-changing function. This results in alternation, which alters the sounds that used to occupy the word-initial position in the constituent words before they were combined.  

For instance, the word täko ″knife″ is an independent lexical unit and, in and of itself, conveys the concept “knife”, but in spoken Nivkh it may appear as the following variations: nʲzako ″my knife″, idäko ″his knife″, pʰsakо ″one’s/their/his/her own knife″, which, when taken out of context, these variations (*zako, *dʲako, *sako) do not denote the meaning of “knife” by themselves and become mere empty strings of sounds.  Another example: if nʲyŋ-mu-bodʲ ″he took our boat″, if ″he″, nʲyŋ ″we, our″, mu ″boat″. The form *bodʲ  is not a separate, independent word, but a variation of evdʲ ″to take, to hold, to support″: *vodʲ, *podʲ, *bodʲ. The form bodʲ can convey the meaning of “to take” only in combination with the surrounding words, and, once isolated from them, ceases to do so.

Such consonant alternation results in each individual word having several varieties, and in a distinction between independent (or free) and dependent morphemes and lexemes. The latter include the different phonetic varieties of word roots and stems, as well as affixated words. They are completely dependent on the context, outside of which they cease to be “words” and become mere meaningless sounds. One can refer to them as morphological – phonological alternatives, or as allomorphs of the same word, rather than as lexical items with a meaning of their own. The former refer to the actual lexical units available in the language (their default or dictionary form). These are fully-formed, complete, and their meaning remains unchanged regardless of the context, i.e. the immediate lexical environment. They convey a certain message in and of themselves and may be realized on both the lexical and the syntactic levels.

Let us consider the word iγdʲ ~ ixnt ″to kill, to procure; quarry, prey, kill″ and its allomorphs -х- ~ -γ- ~ - kʰ u- ~ xu-, which do not exist as individual units and, taken by themselves, do not convey any meaningful information to the listener; they may either be realized on a syntactic level or be transformed into a definite form.

The synthetic word combinations have served as a basis, and an impetus, for the creation of new words, along with numerous markers (suffixes), which appear as some elements lose their meaning and become grammaticalized with time, and most phonemes.

                                   Noun variations

independent morphemes                        dependent morphemes

pos ″fabric, material″                                 -vos, -bos, -fos, -boz, -foz

tyf ″house, home″                                        -ryf, -dyf, - řyv, -dyv

kаn ″dog″                                                    -gan, -gan, хан

tymk ″hand, arm″                                         -rymk, -dymk, -ramk, -damk

tor ″law; custom″                                         -ror, -dor

pal ″forest; mountain″                                 -val, -bal

tu ″lake″                                                       - ru, -du

     Personal pronouns                                                                                 

independent         dependent                                                         

nʲi   ″I″                        nʲ-                                                    

čʰi ″you (sg.)″           čʰ^-                                                                                 

if ″he″                      i-, v-                                                   

pʰi ″himself, myself, youself, itself, oneself, -self; alone″                pʰ^-                                   

Demonstrative pronouns 

independent                   dependent

tydʲ  ″this one″                ty-

hydʲ  ″that one″                 hy-

jaγоdʲ  ″which″            jaγо-

tоγаdʲ ″such″         tоγа-                                  

Intransitive verbs                                                       Qualitative verbs

independent               dependent                      independent                        dependent

prydʲ ″came, arrived″        pry-                      matʲkidʲ ″small, little″             matʲki-

kʰоdʲ   ″slept″                   kʰо-                       urdʲ, urladʲ ″good″                   urla-

pordʲ                                 por-                      pаgdʲ, pаgladʲ ″red″               pаgla-

 

Transitive verbs

independent                                                                 dependent

zudʲ ″washes″                                                -tʰud, -dʲudʲ, -sudʲ, -zu-, -tʰu-, -dʲu-, -su-

sidʲ ″will lay, will put″                                  -čʰidʲ, -si-, -čʰi-

iγmdʲ ″gives″                                                -kʰimdʲ, -ximdʲ, -iγm-, -kʰim-, -xim-

indydʲ ″looks″                                              -nʲřydʲ, indy-, -nʲřy-

jevdʲ ″holds″                                                -vodʲ, -bodʲ, -podʲ, jev-, vo-, bo-, po-

jesptʲ ″chops; pricks, jabs″                         čʰevdʲ, -sevdʲ, jesp-, -čʰev-, -sev-

jardʲ ″feeds″                                                  -ardʲ, jar-, -ar-

jovdʲ ″mends the trammel (dragnet)″           -ovdʲ, -jov-, -ov-

joxttʲ ″heals, cures, treats (an illness)″         -oxttʲ, -oxt-

jedʲ ″cooks, boils″                                       -hedʲ, je-, hе-

A seen from the above, dependent morphemes are formed from independent ones when the respective morphological marker (the marker -i for personal and reciprocal pronouns, the suffix -dʲ  for verbs or the generic markers -i, -е, -j, which serve to replace a generic/non-specific object and, in the case of many verbs, are somewhat akin to prefixes) is lost or when a change occurs in the initial consonant. In addition, the appearance of dependent morphemes depends on the alternation between the initial j and h.

Nominal lexical complexes

Nominal (attributive) lexical complexes consist of nominals and the attributive modifiers attached to them. Qualitative verbs, transitive or intransitive verbs, various pronouns and nouns may function as attributes:

Noun + noun: kʰеk-zif ″fox print″, kаn-dif ″dog print″, kʰоtr-tif ″bear print″ (kʰек ″fox″, kʰоtr ″bear″, *zif and *dif are variations of tif ″print, footprint″);

Personal pronoun + noun: nʲryf ″myhouse″, nʲyn-dyf ″our house″, (*nʲ is the truncated form of nʲi ″I, my, mine″ or nʲyn ″we, our, ours″), *ryf and *dyf are variations of tyf ″house″;

Demonstrative pronoun + noun: hy-dyf ″that house″;

Interrogative pronoun + noun: jaγо-dyf ″which house″;

Qualitative pronoun + noun: tоγа-dyf ″such a house″;

Qualitative verb + noun: urla-dyf ″good house″, vuvvuk-urk ″very dark night″ (vukvukudʲ ″to be very dark; the reduplication of the stem intensifies the meaning″, urk ″night″);

Intransitive verb + noun: tʲosk-dyf ″collapsed house″ (tʲosk- is the root of the verb tʲosktʲ ″to fall, t crumble,to  collapse″;

Transitive verb + noun: zosk-dyf ″a house knocked down by sb.″ (zosk- is the root of the verb zosktʲ ″to break, to knock down″).

Of course, there are other lexical complexes whose structure is far more complex.

Example: hy-eri-zyrujn čʰyzхylа-tola-xeuni-ziхr pandʲ ″on the bank of this river an amazingly thick alder-tree grew″; nʲi pʰytxin pʰymxin-xu-milk-ŋanxt viivunt ″I shall go searching for the demon (who) killed my father and my mother″.

A transitive verb with an incorporated direct complement may also function as an attributive modifier: nivx jyγdʲ ″a man is giving (some) water″; nivx mur-yγdʲ ″ a man is giving (some) water to a horse″; mur-yγ-nivx ″ the man giving (some) water to the horse″; řank tyjd: čʰxyf-kan-ku-avru mesk-avru palux γеd ″the woman dreams: she takes in the forest either the arrow that kills a bear or an earring″; sidʲхаgin-klusu-оγlа ″a child not afraid of anything″.

From the foregoing, it is clear that any incomplete stems or roots present in the lexical complexes can enter into a syntactic relationship with complete, fully-formed words. Note that under certain phonetic conditions the initial consonants do not alternate, but this is not an obstacle to incorporation, as seen from the following example: pandʲr pilŋan ŋa-xa-urla-nivx munyvur, ittʲra ″as he grows big, he will become a good hunter, so they said″.

Nominal incorporation-based lexical complexes may turn into stable phraseological units or become lexicalized, since the new objects or concepts must be named as they enter into the consciousness of the language users, which, naturally, may only occur in accordance with the laws of the language.

Consider several such words: vytʲ-zif ″railway (lit. iron road) ″(vytʲ ~ wat ″iron″, zif < tif ″path, tracks″), psyngir-hum-nʲivx″blue-collar worker, laborer″, pyi-mu-menʲ-vo-nʲivx ″pilot″.

Verbal lexical complexes

Prior to elaborating on verbal lexical complexes, we shall briefly touch upon the nature of the words ending in the suffix -dʲ, which are extremely numerous in Nivkh, and on words that function as adverbial modifiers.

In the demonstrative pronoun hydʲ ~ hud ″this, that″ the root morpheme hu- is used to specify or point something out, dʲ < d < t invariably serves either as the general marker for the possessor of a static property (attribute) or the subject of a dynamic property (attribute); ny-dyf means ″that house″, hydʲ-dyf  means ″his house (the house belonging to that man)″.

Thus the root morpheme hy- means that the word modified by the attributive modifier has a certain property, while the suffix -dʲ points at a relationship with sb./sth. The suffix -dʲ is a truncated form of an ancient nominal marker once used for a generic (non-specific) agent, which may be replaced at any time by the name of a specific agent or the possessor of a specific property or attribute. E.A. Kreinovich believed the marker could be traced back to an ancient form derived from a 3^rd p.sg. pronoun that meant "something, someone" and functioned as a generalized object and person marker. Apparently, apart from the nominative meaning, it also carried a processive meaning, as the Nivkh perceived the entire world around them as alive and animated; as a result, in addition to the substantivization, the marker could become verbalized in the predicative position and could therefore become widespread in both nominal and verbal forms.

The behavior of the words used as adverbial modifiers and their peculiar nature can be seen in the following examples: nyx indyja! ″find (it) today!″, nux-nřyja! ″ find the needle (2^nd p. sg.)!″ naf evä! ″now hold (it) (2^nd p. sg.)!″, čʰyf poja! ″hold the bear (2^nd p. sg.)!″ kru evä! ″take (it) the day after tomorrow (2^nd p. sg.)!″, mu-boja! ″take the boat (2^nd p. sg.)!″

Question: why do the initial sounds of verbs not alternate if the preceding final sound belongs to a word functioning as an adverbial modifier (-х, -f, -u), but do alternate if it belongs to the direct complement (object)?

A plausible answer is that the material circumstances in the aforementioned word chains are different. If the verb follows a fully-formed word functioning as an adverbial modifier, the result is an indefinite word combination. On the other hand, if the verb is preceded by a direct complement, incorporation occurs: the name of the direct complement (object) replaces the generic verb marker (j-, i-, e-) and the verb, or rather its root morpheme, merges with the noun. Words functioning as adverbial modifiers replace the generic object marker and are joined to the verb rather than incorporated into it. Only complete words may be joined to one another, unlike roots, which may be merged into a single unit.  

A transitive verb may is joined to the direct object (possible varieties: nouns, nominals referring to actions, various pronouns, numerals, words used to refer to spatial orientation, verbs).

For greater clarity, let us consider two examples, one with a verb and the other with a nominal referring to an action: Vyskin přydʲ ″Vyskin arrived″ and ni Vyskin-přydʲ nřydʲ ″I saw Vyskin’s arrival″. In the first sentence, přydʲ means ″arrived″, is a verb and functions as the predicate, whereas in the second sentence, the same word means ″arrival″, is a nominal and functions as the direct complement (object). The same is seen with nʲi inʲdʲ ″I am eating″ and tu-inʲdʲ hоrdʲ ″this food is tasty″. Therefore, the word inʲdʲ may be either a verb or a noun depending on its syntactic role.  

Transitive verbs are divided into two large groups. One starts with the aformentioned initial sounds (j-, i-, e-) , which serve as direct complement (object) markers and refer to the object an action is directed at. These sounds are none other but the truncated forms of the 3rd p. sg. pronoun (jaŋ, if, iv, ev). Their role is somewhat similar to that of prefixes. The other group is comprised of transitive verbs which do not have a subject marker and begin with a fricative.

When a specific object is introduced into the utterance, the markers -j, -i, -e become obsolete and are replaced by a specific direct complement, which is merged with the transitive verb. Thus verbs from this group convey the concepts of the action itself, a generic object and a generic agent through a formula similar to "that one does that" or " someone does something".

In the word iγdʲ ~ iγudʲ ~ ixunt ″kills, procures, obtains; kill, prey, quarry″, i- is the general object marker, the morphemes -γ- ~ -γu- ~ -kʰu- ~ -xu- express the concept of ″to kill, to procure, that whch is killed/procured″, while the suffix -dʲ~ -d ~ -nt points at a generalized indefinite agent. The morphemes that have a lexical meaning may come in a near-unlimited number of varieties; for instance, the independent verb iγdʲ and its dependent variety -xu- may be transformed into ixuharifunkuinyxunta ″they ordered to proceed to his final beating″.

A morphological analysis of the word iγdʲ  ″to kill, to procure″ yields the following results: prefixal morpheme + root morpheme + postpositional morpheme (three distinct morphemes). An analysis of the compound word čʰoxunivx ″fisherman (a man who procures fish)″, one of whose components is iγdʲ, yields the following results: root morpheme + root morpheme + root morpheme. Therefore, the literal meaning of iγdʲ is ″who-kills-that one″, its initial element (i-) and final element (-dʲ) may be  isolated, as, for instance, in kʰоtr-kʰu-nʲivx ″the man who is killing a bear″, nivx-kʰu-kʰotr ″the bear who is killing a man″ etc.

Every component in these formations is flexible and easy to replace:

                                   и  -  γ  -  dʲ                 ″killed/kills″

                                   и  - γu -  dʲ                 ″killed/kills″

                                čʰо - хu -  dʲ                  ″kills a fish″

                            laŋr - к^хu - dʲ                   ″kills a ring seal″

                                čʰо -  хu - nʲivx ″the man who procures the fish″

              čʰоγо laŋrko-kʰu-nʲivx ″ the man who procures the fish and the ring seal″

              čʰоγо laŋrko-kʰu-pu                    ″the husband who procures the fish and the ring seal″

            kʰotrko atko-kʰu-er                     ″the father who kills the bear and the tiger″