Alyutor or Alutor is a
language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
of
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
that belongs to the Chukotkan branch of the
Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
The Chukotko-Kamchatkan or Chukchi–Kamchatkan languages are a language family of extreme northeastern Siberia. Its speakers traditionally were indigenous hunter-gatherers and reindeer-herders. Chukotko-Kamchatkan is endangered. The Kamchatkan ...
.
Sociolinguistic situation
The Alutor are the indigenous inhabitants of the northern part of the
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and we ...
. The language is unwritten and moribund; in the 1970s residents of the chief Alutor village of Vyvenka under the age of 25 did not know the language. In recent years the Vyvenka village school has started teaching the language. Until 1958 the language was considered the "village" (settled) dialect of the
Koryak language
Koryak () is a Chukotko-Kamchatkan language spoken by about 1,700 people as of 2010 in the easternmost extremity of Siberia, mainly in Koryak Okrug. It is mostly spoken by Koryaks. Its close relative, the Chukchi language, is spoken by about th ...
, but it is not intelligible with traditionally nomadic varieties of Koryak. The autonym means "villager".
Orthography
Typology
Alutor is a
polysynthetic
In linguistic typology, polysynthetic languages, formerly holophrastic languages, are highly synthetic languages, i.e. languages in which words are composed of many morphemes (word parts that have independent meaning but may or may not be able to ...
language.
The morphology is
agglutinative
In linguistics, agglutination is a morphological process in which words are formed by stringing together morphemes, each of which corresponds to a single syntactic feature. Languages that use agglutination widely are called agglutinative langu ...
, with extensive prefixes and suffixes.
The argument structure is
ergative.
The
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how different languages employ different orders. C ...
is variable, and it is difficult to say which typology is basic. The verb-absolutive orders AVO and VAO are perhaps most common.
Phonology
Vowels
Alyutor has six vowels, five of which may be long or short. The
schwa
In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa (, rarely or ; sometimes spelled shwa) is a vowel sound denoted by the IPA symbol , placed in the central position of the vowel chart. In English and some other languages, it rep ...
cannot be long.
Consonants
There are 18 consonants in Alyutor.
Stress
Stress is generally on the second syllable of the word. However, it cannot fall on an
open syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological "bu ...
containing the vowel schwa or on the last syllable, so in two-syllable words stress is transferred to the first syllable, as long as that syllable is not open and doesn't contain the schwa. In cases where it is an open syllable containing the schwa, a third syllable is added to the end of the word and the second syllable is stressed
[http://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/~nedoluzko/2018/docs/phonology_2018.pdf ] E.g -> 'mosquito'
Examples: 'water', 'husband', 'a
mukluk
Mukluks or kamik ( iu, ᑲᒥᒃ ) (singular: , plural: ) are a soft boot, traditionally made of reindeer (caribou) skin or sealskin, and worn by Arctic aboriginal people, including the Inuit, Iñupiat, and Yup'ik.
Mukluks may be worn over a ...
(boot)', 'to feed' 'skin'.
Syllable structure
All Alyutor syllables begin with a single consonant. If the vowel is short, including a schwa, they may also close with a single consonant. Consonant clusters are not permitted in the word initial or word final positions. The schwa is used to brake disallowed clusters.
Examples are 'to work', 'eagle', 'parka'.
Alyutor word boundaries always coincide with syllable boundaries.
Morphology
Alyutor has the following parts of speech: nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns, verbs, participles, adverbs, postpositions, conjunctions, and particles.
Nouns
Nouns are inflected for number, case, definiteness, and grammatical person.
There are three
grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of ...
s: singular, dual and plural.
There are eleven cases:
absolutive
In grammar, the absolutive case (abbreviated ) is the case of nouns in ergative–absolutive languages that would generally be the subjects of intransitive verbs or the objects of transitive verbs in the translational equivalents of nominative– ...
,
ergative,
locative
In grammar, the locative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates a location. It corresponds vaguely to the English prepositions "in", "on", "at", and "by". The locative case belongs to the general local cases, together with the ...
,
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a ...
,
lative
In grammar, the lative (; list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general loca ...
,
prolative, contractive,
causative
In linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...
, equative,
comitative
In grammar, the comitative case (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case that denotes accompaniment. In English, the preposition "with", in the sense of "in company with" or "together with", plays a substantially similar role (other uses of "with", l ...
, and
associative
In mathematics, the associative property is a property of some binary operations, which means that rearranging the parentheses in an expression will not change the result. In propositional logic, associativity is a valid rule of replacement f ...
.
Number and case are expressed using a single affix. A suffix is used for all cases except the comitative and associative, which are expressed using
circumfix
A circumfix (abbreviated ) (also confix or ambifix) is an affix which has two parts, one placed at the start of a word, and the other at the end. Circumfixes contrast with prefixes, attached to the beginnings of words; suffixes, attached at t ...
es. There are two
declension
In linguistics, declension (verb: ''to decline'') is the changing of the form of a word, generally to express its syntactic function in the sentence, by way of some inflection. Declensions may apply to nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and ar ...
s, taught as three noun classes. The first class are nonhuman nouns of the first declension. Number is only distinguished in the absolutive case, though verbal agreement may distinguish number when these nouns are in the ergative. The second class are proper names and kin terms for elders. They are second declension, and distinguish number in the ergative, locative, and lative cases, as well as the absolutive. The third class are the other human nouns; they may be either first or second declension.
Case roles
*The absolutive case is the citation form of a noun. It is used for the argument ("subject") of an intransitive clause and the object of a transitive clause, for "syntactic possessives", and for the
vocative
In grammar, the vocative Grammatical case, case (list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed, or occasionally for the noun modifiers ...
.
*The ergative is used for the agent ("subject") of a transitive verb, as an
instrumental case
In grammar, the instrumental case (abbreviated or ) is a grammatical case used to indicate that a noun is the ''instrument'' or means by or with which the subject achieves or accomplishes an action. The noun may be either a physical object or an ...
, and as the argument of an
antipassive
The antipassive voice (abbreviated or ) is a type of grammatical voice that either does not include the object or includes the object in an oblique case. This construction is similar to the passive voice, in that it decreases the verb's valency ...
clause.
*The locative is used for position and direction (
essive
In grammar, the essive case, or similaris case, (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case.O'Grady, William, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, and Janie Rees-Miller. "Morphology: The Analysis of Word Structure." Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. 6th ...
and
lative case
In grammar, the lative (; abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which indicates motion to a location. It corresponds to the English prepositions "to" and "into". The lative case belongs to the group of the general local cases together with the locati ...
s), as well as arguments which are "driven away"
*The dative is used for recipients, benefactors, directional objects (
allative case
In grammar, the allative case (; abbreviated ; from Latin ''allāt-'', ''afferre'' "to bring to") is a type of locative grammatical case. The term allative is generally used for the lative case in the majority of languages that do not make fine ...
), and subjects of experiential verbs
*Lative is used for motion toward a goal
*Prolative is used for movement along and movement from (
perlative and
elative case
In grammar, the elative case (abbreviated ; from la, efferre "to bring or carry out") is a locative grammatical case with the basic meaning "out of". Usage Uralic languages
In Finnish, the elative is typically formed by adding ", in Estonian by ...
s)
* Equative is used with the meanings 'like X', 'as X', usually with verbs like 'to become', 'to turn into', 'to work as,' etc.
* Contactive is used for objects that make contact
* Causative is used for noun phrases that cause or motivate an action
* Comitative is used for ...
* Associative is used for ... . It is only attested in the declension of nouns of the first declension, usually inanimate.
Grammatical person
Grammatical first and second person suffixes on nouns are used to equate a noun with participants in the discourse. They only appear in the absolutive, with an intervening ''j'' on nouns ending in a vowel and an ''i'' on nouns ending in a consonant.
* …ʡopta am-ʡujamtawilʔ-ə-muru "yes we the people"
* japlə=q ʡujamtawilʔ-iɣəm "and I'm a man"
Numerals
Alyutor has simple numerals for the numbers one to five, ten, and twenty. All other numbers are compounds based on these numerals.
Verbs
There are finite (conjugated) and non-finite verbs. There are several conjugations.
Polypersonal conjugation
Finite verbs agree in person and number with their nuclear
arguments
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
; agreement is through both prefixes and suffixes. Transitive verbs agree with both arguments (ergative and absolutive), whereas intransitive verbs agree with their sole (absolutive) argument.
Verbs distinguish two aspects,
perfective
The perfective aspect (abbreviated ), sometimes called the aoristic aspect, is a grammatical aspect that describes an action viewed as a simple whole; i.e., a unit without interior composition. The perfective aspect is distinguished from the imp ...
, the bare stem, and
imperfective
The imperfective (abbreviated or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a gen ...
, using the suffix ''-tkə / -tkəni''. There are five moods,
indicative
A realis mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood which is used principally to indicate that something is a statement of fact; in other words, to express what the speaker considers to be a known state of affairs, as in declarative sentences. Most ...
,
imperative,
optative
The optative mood ( or ; abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood that indicates a wish or hope regarding a given action. It is a superset of the cohortative mood and is closely related to the subjunctive mood but is distinct from the desiderative mo ...
, potential (marked by the circumfix ''ta…(ŋ)''), and conjunctive (prefix ''ʔ-/a-'').
Monopersonal conjugation
Monopersonal verbs include two conjugations, one with the third-person singular in ''ɣa-...-lin,'' and the other in ''n-...-qin''.
Impersonal conjugation
For impersonal forms of conjugation include verbal predicate (formed with the circumfix a…ka) and imperative (formed by circumfix ɣa…a/ta). Non-finite forms Impersonal forms include the verbal predicate with the circumfix ''a…ka,'' and the imperative in ''ɣa…a/ta.''
Non-finite forms
These include the infinitive,
supine
In grammar, a supine is a form of verbal noun used in some languages. The term is most often used for Latin, where it is one of the four principal parts of a verb. The word refers to a position of lying on one's back (as opposed to 'prone', lyi ...
, gerunds, and participles.
References
Bibliography
*Kibrik, A.E., S.V. Kodzasov, I.A. Murav'eva. 2000. ''Jazyk i fol'klor aljutorcev.'' Moscow: IMLI RAN Nasledie.
*Nagayama, Yukari. 2003. ''Ocherk grammatiki aljutorskogo jazyka''
ELPRPublication Series A2-038). Osaka:
Osaka Gakuin University
Osaka Gakuin University (大阪学院大学, ''Ōsaka Gakuin Daigaku''), also known as Osaka Graduate University (OGU), is a mid-sized, mid-level private liberal arts university located in Suita, Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The university focuses o ...
.
External links
The Aliutors
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alyutor Language
Agglutinative languages
Chukotko-Kamchatkan languages
Languages of Russia
Subject–verb–object languages
Endangered languages
Languages written in Cyrillic script