Uyghur grammar
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Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken mostly in the west of
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
LIM:limitative case LMT:limitative case DV:direction voice PRN:pronominaliser SIM:similitude case EQU:equivalence case EQV:equivalence case INTENT:intention state INDIR:indirect statement mood HEARSAY:hearsay mood SUBJASS:subjective assessment mood OBJASS:objective assessment mood
Uyghur exhibits the
agglutination 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 lang ...
characteristic to the Turkic family and its basic
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 subject-object-verb. It lacks
grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
and does not use
articles Article often refers to: * Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness * Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication Article may also refer to: G ...
. The language's inventory of 24 consonants and eight vowels features both
vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an Assimilation (linguistics), assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is t ...
and
consonant harmony Consonant harmony is a type of "long-distance" phonological assimilation, akin to the similar assimilatory process involving vowels, i.e. vowel harmony. Examples In Athabaskan languages One of the more common harmony processes is ''coronal harm ...
. Nouns are marked for ten cases, in general with suffixes and are additionally
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defini ...
for
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
. This article uses both the
Arabic script The Arabic script is the writing system used for Arabic and several other languages of Asia and Africa. It is the second-most widely used writing system in the world by number of countries using it or a script directly derived from it, and the ...
(official for the language) and
Latin script The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae, in southern Italy ...
for Uyghur words.


General characteristics

The typical word order in Uyghur is
subject–object–verb Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to: Philosophy *'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing **Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
, as in the sentence "men uyghurche oquymen", lit., "I Uyghur study" Compare this to
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
, where the sentence would be expressed with subject–verb–object order: "I study Uyghur". Uyghur is an agglutinative language, meaning that potentially many suffixes (denoting
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
, number, case, mood, etc.) are usually all attached to one word stem. For example "to your house," the main word, house, occurs first, and the modifying elements are attached directly to the right and written all in one word: Nouns are not distinguished for gender (e.g. male, female), unlike in such languages as
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, Spanish and
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...
. Nouns are usually pluralized (with the suffix +lAr) except when preceded by a numeral: compare "atlar" ("horses") and "ikki at" (two horses). Instead of using articles (like English "a", "the"), Uyghur uses
demonstrative Demonstratives (abbreviated ) are words, such as ''this'' and ''that'', used to indicate which entities are being referred to and to distinguish those entities from others. They are typically deictic; their meaning depending on a particular frame ...
pronouns ("this", "that") and no marker or the numeral one (bir) to indicate
definiteness In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases, distinguishing between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those which are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical d ...
and indefiniteness, respectively, "this cat/the cat" vs. بىر مۈشۈك(bir müshük) "a/one cat" or مۈشۈك(müshük) "cat/cats." Uyghur verbs take, usually at least for tense (present, past) and person (I, you, s/he, they, etc.), for example Uyghur verbs can also take other suffixes to mark
voice The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in ...
(causative, passive),
aspect Aspect or Aspects may refer to: Entertainment * ''Aspect magazine'', a biannual DVD magazine showcasing new media art * Aspect Co., a Japanese video game company * Aspects (band), a hip hop group from Bristol, England * ''Aspects'' (Benny Carter ...
(continuous), mood (e.g. ability), as well as suffixes that change verbs into nouns—sometimes many all together:
Negation In logic, negation, also called the logical complement, is an operation that takes a proposition P to another proposition "not P", written \neg P, \mathord P or \overline. It is interpreted intuitively as being true when P is false, and false ...
usually also appears as a verb suffix, e.g. Uyghur has vowel and consonant harmony, a system where vowels or consonants in a word come to match or become similar to each other, especially as suffixes and other elements are attached. Many but not all words and grammatical elements in Uyghur behave according to these harmonic principles. If a suffix is written with one or more capital letters (e.g. +DA, +lAr, +GA, etc.), these capital letters indicate that these sounds are harmonic, that is, variable: D= d/t, G= gh/q/g/k; K= k/q; A= a/e; I= i/u/ü or ø/i/u/ü.


Sound system

There are 32 basic sounds in Modern Uyghur.


Consonants

Uyghur has 24 consonants (listed here according to the Arabic-script alphabet): b, p, t, j, ch, x, d, r, z, zh, s, sh, gh, f, q, k, g, ng, l, m, n, x, h, w, y (and 25 consonants if the
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
‘ is counted). Most are not pronounced much differently than their English counterparts (e.g. Uyghur j in baj "tax" is pronounced like j in judge; Uyghur ch in üch "three" is pronounced like ch in itch; Uyghur h in he’e "yes" is pronounced like h in hello), except that l has palatal or velar variants. A few sounds are not found in English: q gh and x. The
voiceless uvular stop The voiceless uvular plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It is pronounced like a voiceless velar plosive , except that the tongue makes contact not on the soft palate but on the uvula. The symbol in the ...
q is pronounced like a back k, with the back of the tongue touching the soft palate, as in aq "white," Qeshqer "Kashgar." The sound gh is typically a voiced
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in t ...
version of q, also pronounced at the very back of the mouth and sounds like French or German r, as in Roissy or Ruhr. (Near front vowels, gh is often pronounced more front, like French Rue or German Rübe.) Finally, the Uyghur voiceless velar or uvular fricative x is pronounced like ch in Scottish loch, or further back in the mouth, like a back version of German ach. The four sounds k, g, q and gh are subject to consonant harmony: (1) within a stem (main word), they potentially determine its backness and (2) within a variable suffix, they conform to the backness and voicing of the preceding stem. Consonant harmony is discussed below. The ژ zh (sounds like English garage), is only for foreign and onomatopoeic words like zhurnal ‘magazine, journal’ and pizh-pizh "sizzling." The letter ج j (normally pronounced as in baj ‘tax’) is in southern Xinjiang often pronounced . Initial y can also be pronounced before i, e.g. yilan ‘snake’. In Uyghur words of Turkic origin, sh is rare, except as a suffix; similarly, since f was borrowed into Uyghur from
Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...
and
Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
, it is often replaced by p, especially in colloquial and rural usage: fakultët~pakultët ‘academic department’.


Vowels

Uyghur has eight vowels. Vowels are rounded (o, u, ü, ö) and unrounded (a, i, e, ë); this distinction is sometimes termed labial vs. non-labial; they are front (ü, ö, e, ë) or back (u, o, a). These distinctions are critical for harmonic purposes, since Uyghur words are subject to vowel harmony. The orthographic vowel i represents both a front and a back and is not subject to vowel harmony. Uyghur accent (stress or high pitch, which we will for convenience call stress) is not well understood, yet some general remarks can be made to aid language learning. In Uyghur, stress is mostly determined by the length of syllables. This means that a syllable which is closed (i.e., ends in consonants VC or CVCC tends to attract stress, while a syllable which is open (i.e. ends in a vowel V does not. A rule of thumb is: stress the last syllable of the stem, e.g. ayagh "foot," Turpan'gha "to Turfan." (in the vocabulary lists, we underline stressed syllables.)


Harmonic Rules

Word-internal harmony is relatively weak in Uyghur, but when suffixes are added to a word stem, certain suffix vowels and consonants harmonize with those of the stem. There are three variable vowels in Uyghur, A (a/e), I (i/u/ü), and U (u/ü). There are three harmonically variable consonant types: G (k/g/q/gh), K (k/q) and D (d/t). Uyghur's harmony system has three relevant components: voicing, backness and roundness harmony. Note that -AK will always be either -ek or -aq, and -IK can only be ik, iq, uq, or ük. Remember that i represents both a front and a back and is a neutral vowel and thus this can affect vowel harmony in suffixes. For instance: Takes the front versions of archiphonemes G and A, as the word is solely made up of , but:Takes the back versions, as the word is phonetically ɑtɨpqɑ with the /i/ turning to the back vowel due to the /ɑ/.


A-raising

When a stem ends in unstressed a or e (as part of the archiphoneme A), and it is followed by a consonant (i.e. suffixes), this a/e is usually raised to i. When a monosyllabic stem ends in a/e, and is followed by a consonant, its a/e is usually raised to ë. This is reflected in the orthography. Other vowels do not change. For example:Here the -a of /ˈtʃo.kɑ/ is raised to /i/ to make the plural, /ˈtʃo.ki.lɑr/. Here is an example of a monosyllabic stem changingːWhile the stem /mɑŋ/ is not an open syllable, as Uyghur syllable structure is onset-mandatory, when the stem takes the suffix ''-(I)wat-'' the /ŋ/ of the stem breaks off to form a syllable with the /i/ of the suffix, like soː /me.ŋi.wɑ.ti.du/ (here the eis not stressed). Where the a or e is stressed, the vowel does not raise, for instance with:As the syllable is stressed, it does not raise: /ʔɑ.ˈwɑz/, /ʔɑ.ˈwɑ.zim/. Words like this with a stressed final syllable are known as strong nouns and add a y or r between their stem and first/second person personal suffixes. Monosyllabic words ending in a rounded verb always add y. Names, unfamiliar place names, and non-nativised loan words do not change. Loan words are frequent sources of stressed open final syllables, such as the Arabic loan /dun.ˈjɑ/, from .


Sound changes not reflected in writing

A-raising also takes place across word boundaries, but this is not reflected in writing, see:Which is pronounced /ˈlɑ.ti xɛdʒ/. Some loan words ending in p and b change that p/b to w when a vowel-initial suffix is added to them. This is not reflected in any orthography other than Cyrillic. The table below shows some other sound changes in words that are not reflected in writing.


Pronouns


Personal pronouns

In Uyghur there is one set of personal pronouns used for the first- and third
person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of property, ...
, while there are three in the second person. The use of the three sets in the second person depends on the formality and politeness. The personal pronouns are
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defini ...
for
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
and
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
. Follow the links of each of the personal pronouns to see them inflected. The second person personal pronoun mostly used among people is the polite سىز, ''siz'', while the informal سەن, ''sen'' is used between very close friends or when parents are addressing their children. The informal سەن, ''sen'' is also used when the speaker has a higher social rank than the addressed person. The respectful سىلى, ''sili'' is used for respectfully addressing elders, grandparents or other notable persons of a community. Royalty is also addressed using سىلى, ''sili'' and sometimes even customers in stores. The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart, with some exhibiting irregularities (in bold):


Demonstrative pronouns

Uyghur has several demonstrative pronouns with some of them being used for emphasis or as
intensifier In linguistics, an intensifier (abbreviated ) is a lexical category (but ''not'' a traditional part of speech) for a modifier that makes no contribution to the propositional meaning of a clause but serves to enhance and give additional emotional co ...
s, while others have less specific uses. Common for all of the demonstrative pronouns is that their use depends on the distance between the speaker and the thing or person to which is referred. The demonstrative pronouns are
inflected In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and defini ...
for
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers c ...
and
case Case or CASE may refer to: Containers * Case (goods), a package of related merchandise * Cartridge case or casing, a firearm cartridge component * Bookcase, a piece of furniture used to store books * Briefcase or attaché case, a narrow box to c ...
, but must take the genitive case suffix ''-ning'' first before other cases (other than in the genitive and accusative case). In the table below, the demonstrative pronouns can be seen, although only in the singular. Follow the links of each of the demonstrative pronouns to see them inflected. The most common demonstrative pronouns are بۇ, ''bu'', ئۇ, ''u'' and شۇ, ''shu'', the first being translated as ''this'' and the remaining two as ''that''. The first is used when referring to an object or person which is visible and close to the speaker, the second is used when referring to an object or person which is away from the speaker and the third is used when referring to a previously mentioned object or person which is not particular close to the speaker in an affirmative statement. The two first-mentioned demonstrative persons each have an
intensified ''Intensified'' is an album by Desmond Dekker & the Aces released in 1970. Track listing All tracks composed by Desmond Dekker; except where indicated #" It Mek" (Dekker, Leslie Kong Leslie Kong (20 December 1933 – 9 August 1971) was an inf ...
derived Derive may refer to: * Derive (computer algebra system), a commercial system made by Texas Instruments * ''Dérive'' (magazine), an Austrian science magazine on urbanism *Dérive, a psychogeographical concept See also * *Derivation (disambiguatio ...
form ending in ۋۇ, ''-wu'', ماۋۇ, ''mawu'' and ئاۋۇ, ''awu'', respectively. These are used when it is necessary to make it clear that the object or person the demonstrative pronoun is referring to really is the object or person which the speaker means. The two first-mentioned demonstrative persons both also have another derived form, ending in شۇ, ''-shu'', مۇشۇ, ''mushu'' and ئاشۇ, ''ashu'', respectively. These are often used for confirming something the speaker is already familiar with. The examples below illustrate the use of بۇ, ''bu'' and its derived forms.


Nouns

Nouns in Uyghur have no
grammatical gender In linguistics, grammatical gender system is a specific form of noun class system, where nouns are assigned with gender categories that are often not related to their real-world qualities. In languages with grammatical gender, most or all nouns ...
or definite marking, although the number 'one' ''bir'' can be used to mark indefiniteness.
Plural The plural (sometimes abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the default quantity represented by that noun. This de ...
s are marked by ''-lAr'', with the vowel following the rules of vowel harmony. The plural is not used after numbers.


Cases

Uyghur has ten cases, all of which except the
nominative In grammar, the nominative case (abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
are marked by suffixation after possible plural or possessive suffixes. Case always comes after plurals and possessive suffixes. Note that the locative-qualitative, limitative, equivalence, and similitude cases are sometimes not considered to be cases. Note that as the example word, /kitab, has its final consonant devoiced to phonetically be , it uses the unvoiced variants of suffixes.


Nominative

The nominative indicates the subject; that which is predicated in the sentence. It can also indicate the target of address, and names for qualified objects. For example:It can also function as a predicate, for example:


Genitive

The genitive indicates the thing that possesses, and is primarily a qualifier but can function as a predicate, for example:The genitive can also be pronominalised, allowing the noun it indicates as possessed to be dropped. The use of the suffix -ki after it for this is optional, unless the word it is qualifying is not in the nominative case. For example:Not using -ki here is fine as Kasim's dictionary would also be in the nominative, but:As here Tursun's article would also take the accusative case, -ki must be used. Some nouns in the nominative act like genitive nouns, and require the nouns they qualify to take a possessive suffix. These are known as nouns in the nature of the possessive case, and produce closely bound noun phrases that are usually used in the place of one word. Qualifiers (i.e. adjectives) that come before the phrases qualify the entire phrase, not just the head word. For example:


Dative

Dative nouns are usually subordinate to verbs or verbal phrases and act as adverbial modifiers. They can also be adjectival modifiers. For example, the dative case can indicate the target of an action (usually preceded by "to" in English):It can also indicate: * The object of actions expressed by certain intransitive verbs * The subject of verbs in the causative voice formed from transitive verbs * The purpose of an action * The instrument or price of certain actions


Accusative

Accusative-case nouns are subordinate to transitive verbs and indicate the object of their action, for example:Sometimes nouns in the nominative case are the subject of transitive verbs, these are known as nouns in the nature of the accusative case and generalise the nature of the object, making its relation with the verb closer, and creating an object-verb phrase used in place of a simple verb. For example:


Locative

These nouns function as qualifiers (for mostly verbs, but sometimes adjectives) and signify the action's temporal or physical location. They indicate: * The place where an action occurs. * The time at which an action occurs, or the time for which it lasts. * The circumstances or atmosphere in which an action occurs. * The instrument of an action. When subordinate to an adjective, they indicate the place or field of an activity.When used as a predicate, they indicate the location or source of the subject.


Ablative

Ablative nouns are subordinate to verbs and sometimes adjectives and adverbs, and they mostly act as adverbial modifiers. It is usually associated with the pronoun "from" in English When acting as an adverbial modifier, they can indicate: * The point of departure/separation of the subject/recipient, or the object that is passed through. * Things which are mentally distanced from the subject of an action. * The source of an action. * The starting point of a limit connected with an action. * The material/components of the subject/recipient. * A generality/group from which one or some are related to the action. * The field covered by the action. * The reason for the action (cause). Ablative nouns subordinate to adjectives indicate unequal comparison. Some adjectives also sometimes require the ablative case for noun modifiers, for example:


Locative-qualitative

These nouns function as qualifiers (for almost any part of speech) and signify the word's temporal or physical location. The difference between this and the locative case is that the qualifier is not specific, but general/universal. For example:When context is clear, it is possible to drop the noun that the locative-qualitative case noun is qualifying and use this non-dropped noun pronominally, which also takes the cases of the dropped noun.


Limitative

These nouns are subordinate to verbs and function as adverbial modifiers, and sometimes as the predicate. When they modify verbs, they indicate the final point reached as a limit of an action, for example:When a limitative case noun acts as a predicate, it indicates the final limit of the subject.


Similitude

Nouns in the similitude case can act as qualifiers or adverbial modifiers, in both cases they liken the quality/action to their base noun. For example:


Equivalence

Nouns in the equivalence case can act as qualifiers or adverbial modifiers, in both cases they liken the quality/action to their base noun, with respect to the level/amount/measurement. For example:


Possessive Suffixes

Uyghur, like Uzbek, has possessive suffixes that indicate person. Monosyllabic nouns ending in rounded vowels (i.e. ''su'') will add a y before first and second person suffixes (i.e. ''suyum, suyingiz'' but ''susi'').


Noun-formation affixes

Uyghur has a wide variety of affixes which form words from others. This section will go over noun-formation affixes.


Affixes which derive nouns from nouns


Affixes which derive nouns from adjectives


Affixes which derive nouns from verbs


Adjectives

Adjectives in Uyghur can often be used as adverbial modifiers, and indicate the quality of an object or action. Most adjectives can have their degree modified, and these are known as "gradable" adjectives. However, it is impossible to strengthen or weaken some adjectives (i.e. ), which are known as "non-gradable" adjectives.


Degree

There are a variety of ways to indicate degree when it comes to gradable adjectives.


Degree affixes


Reduplication

This is known as "the repeated form" and emphasises that the quality is unique to a large number of things of the same type, or that the action possessing the quality indicated by the adjective is repeated many times.


Nominalisation

Some adjectives can be directly turned into nouns, for example:They can also function as nouns when the noun is dropped, indicating objects with the quality they have.


Adjective-formation suffixes


Affixes that derive adjectives from nouns


Affixes that derive adjectives from verbs and adverbs


Copulas

Like most Turkic languages, copulas are important to verbs, and some are words that have become fixed in a single form ("incomplete copulas", some of which are suffixes), although "complete copulas", which are entirely separate words, do exist.


Null copula

In the present tense, it is not essential to use a copula, for example:


Mood-tense copulas

These copulas can differ between regions, the forms given in the table are those used in Northern Xinjiang.


Negative judgement copula

The negative copula, ''emes'', does not inflect for person or tense. For example:


Verbs

Verbs in Uyghur inflect in a variety of ways, such as for tense, aspect, and mood.


Infinitives

There are two infinitival suffixes in Uyghur, -(I)sh and -mAK. -(I)sh is used in most situations where the infinitive and gerund is used in English, primarily when discussing an action as a noun, as such -(I)sh is often accompanied by the accusative -ni. For example:


Person

While some tenses inflect for person, some such as the future-present tense simply go between the stem and the following personal suffixes. These are by far the most common suffixes, and are known as "type 1" suffixes. The possessive markers are also used with some tenses, and in this context are known as "type 2".


State-Tense

Tömür describes Uyghur as having four states and three tenses, with all of the states being able to take past and present tenses, thus producing nine state-tenses for verbs. Some of these have multiple variants. The archiphoneme Y here is ''y'' after vowels, ''i'' after consonants, and ''yi'' if the verb is "yu". The archiphoneme K is much like G but is always voiceless.


Simple past tense

The simple past tense always indicates that the action or state expressed by the verb took place before the time of speaking, no matter the mood of the verb.It can also be used in some special senses to indicate that the action will take place immediately, show an absolute determination to carry out the action, or indicate the sense of hypothesis.


Present perfect tense

The present perfect tense indicates the current existence of the state which the action has brought about. It differs from the simple past tense in requiring the action to be completed to a degree that it has changed the state of the object.


Past perfect tense

The past perfect tense indicates the existence of the state which the action has brought about before another related matter, or at a specific point in the past.


Present imperfect tense

The present imperfect tense indicates the present existence the state of an action that regularly/always occurs, or will occur later. This includes actions such as: * Actions that always happen according to objective laws and logic * Actions that express temperament/habits * Actions which express character, special skills, etc * Actions which indicate a job or daily activity * Actions which always happen according to rule * Actions that definitely will happen according to logic, or have been decided will happen. * Actions which indicate determination or which the speaker considers will happen.


Past imperfect tense

The present imperfect tense indicates the existence the state of an action that regularly/always occurs, or will occur later, at some point in the past or before a related matter. This includes actions such as: * An action/matter that happened continuously in the past, i.e. "used to teach" * An intention, plan, or agreement about carrying out an action before a certain matter. * A conjecture about an action that has not taken place, or will definitely not take place. * When a writer is talking about things that were happening before or at the time of the event.


Present continuous tense

The present continuous tense indicates the present existence of a continuously ongoing or fixed state of an action.


Past continuous tense

The present continuous tense indicates the existence of a continuously ongoing or fixed state of an action at a previous time or before a certain matter.


Present intention tense

The present intention tense indicates the present existence of an action that has been intended or agreed upon.


Past intention tense

The present intention tense indicates the existence of an action that has been intended or agreed upon, before a certain matter.


Mood

These verb endings can differ between regions, the forms given in the table are those used in Kashgar.


Direct statement mood

The direct statement mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker knows first-hand. It is the most common mood.


Indirect statement mood

The indirect statement mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker knows indirectly (has learned of recently from facts/information given by others). Most often translated with the English word "apparently".


Hearsay mood

The hearsay mood indicates that the subject matter is something the speaker has heard of from others. Mostly translated with "they say that", "SUBJ has heard that", or "supposedly".It can also be used for: * Describing dreams * Talking in a sarcastic manner


Subjective assessment mood

The subjective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter is something that has been assessed in a subjective manner. Usually translated with "think", "guess", or "believe".


Objective assessment mood

The objective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter is something that has been assessed according to certain facts, and it is usually translated with "looks as", "seems", "must have", etc. It does not inflect for tense, only for state.


Imperative (command-request) mood

The imperative mood, and all following moods, do not inflect based on state-tense. The objective assessment mood indicates that the subject matter of the sentence is spoken in a matter that denotes: * Requesting * Instructing/ordering * Complying * Appealing * Wishing It may also indicate that the listener is being requested to wait until the subject matter has finished/ceased. The suffix -''Gin'' can also be attached to the end of the verb to give an affectionate mood to the command/request.


Hypothesis-objection (conditional) mood

The hypothesis-objection mood can indicate either a hypothetical mood to the subject matter of the sentence, like below: or it can indicate that the subject matter is spoken in opposition to another, as below:


Hope-polite request mood

This is formed by attaching the -iken auxiliary to the verb's hypothesis-objection mood form. The auxiliary may sometimes be omitted. It indicates that the subject matter of the sentence is spoken in the manner of a petition, desire, or polite request.


Wish mood

This is formed by attaching the past tense direct judgement copula to the verb's hypothesis-objection mood form. The copula may sometimes be omitted.


Regret mood


Entreaty mood


Anxiety mood

The underlying structure of this is -ma+GAy+past tense direct judgement copula, but both a's are raised to i.


Necessity mood


Aspect

There are a variety of ways to indicate aspect with respect to verbs in Uyghur, including the use of infixes and auxiliary verbs.


Auxiliary Verbs and the ''-(I)p'' converb

The addition of the converb suffix ''-(I)p'' to the main verb, then followed by an auxiliary inflected verb, can indicate aspect, in a form known as the aspectual complement. Auxiliary verbs can also be used to indicate direction with verbs like ''bar-, kel-, ket-'', (to go, to come, to leave) in a form known as the directional complement. For example:Here the main verb is ''saqla-'' (to wait), with ''tur-'' being the auxiliary (meaning to continue; keep on, in its auxiliary form). The negative form of ''-(I)p'' is ''-mAy'', but the suffix ''-mAstin'' can also be used, although it is considerably more informal and limited to the past tense. Example:-''(I)p'', as a converb suffix, can be used in many other ways, such as to link verbs or even entire clauses and sentences. When this is done only the final verb is inflected for person and tense. For example: The tense and person of all the verbs are indicated by the inflection of the final verb.


Aspect Infixes

Aspect infixes derive from aspect auxiliary verbs merging with verbs in the adverbial form and undergoing sound change.


Verb Formation

Verbs themselves can be word stems unto themselves, or be formed through compounding or verb-derivation suffixes.


Root Verbs

Some examples of root verbs include: They cannot be broken down into any further
morpheme A morpheme is the smallest meaningful Constituent (linguistics), constituent of a linguistic expression. The field of linguistics, linguistic study dedicated to morphemes is called morphology (linguistics), morphology. In English, morphemes are ...
s.


Derived Verbs

A variety of verb-formation suffixes can be attached to various words (ranging from nouns and adjectives to other verbs) to form verbs. Many of these suffixes use harmonic rules/archiphonemes earlier described. There are many other highly unproductive suffixes without many examples.


Compound Verbs

These are verbs made up of two words that have merged into one inseparable word, phonetically and semantically, and express a singular lexical meaning. For example:


Verbal substantives


Participles

There are three groups of participles.


The perfect participle

The Perfect Participle displays the action expressed by itself as a quality that has come into existence (i.e. has been completed).


The continuous participle

The Continuous Participle displays as a quality the continuous state or action expressed by itself.


The imperfect participle

The Imperfect Participle displays the action expressed by itself as a quality which is habitually expressed or will be expressed later, i.e. which has not been completed.


Gerunds

There are seven types of gerund (also called verbal nouns).


The -sh gerund

The -sh gerund expresses as an obiect an action that is neutral with respect to state. It functions as a noun in the sentence. There are also many special cases this gerund can be used in. * When used as the subject of a sentence that has its predicate expressed by ''kërek, lazim,'' and ''shert'', it indicates the requirement for the action expressed by the gerund to be carried out as well as possible. * When used as the subject of a sentence that has its predicate expressed by ''mumkin'' it indicates an estimation about the occurrence of the action. * When used in the dative and combined with the verb ''toghra kelmek'' it indicates the need for the action to be carried out. * When used in the dative or combined with the postposition ''bilen'' it functions as an adverbial of time, and indicates an action coming into act immediately/soon after the gerund. * When combined with ''bilen'' it can also indicate an action performed as a means of carrying out another action. * When combined with ''bilen qalmay'' it indicates that the subject is not confined solely to the action indicated by the gerund, but also carries out another action. * When used in the dative (independently) it can indicate an adverbial modifier of direction for some verbs, or a modifier of permission with the verb ''bol''. * When in the ablative case as a modifier for the word ''meqset'' it indicates an action without implication. * When combined with the posposition ''üchün'' it functions as an adverbial modifier of purpose with any verb. * When in the accusative and in front of a simple past/imperfect present form of the same verb, it turns it into the predicate of a subordinate non-impeding objection clause. (i.e. ''bërishni baridu'' - despite my having gone) * When in the plural form it basically indicates that the action (i) happens in many places or (ii) is repeated on many occasions. or (iii) possesses a representative character.


Adverbials

There are seven types of adverbial.


References


Notes


General

* Abdurehim, Esmael (2014)
The Lopnor dialect of Uyghur – A descriptive analysis
(PDF), Publications of the Institute for Asian and African Studies 17, Helsinki: Unigrafia, * * * * Translated by Anne Lee and reprinted in 2003 as Modern Uyghur Grammar (Morphology). Istanbul: Yıldız. {{DEFAULTSORT:Uyghur Grammar Turkic grammars Uyghur language