Praseo syntax - Revision history

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[[Category:Prasa]][[Category:Praseo language]]

= Word order =

Praseo word order is very free, and the order of phrases within a sentence is almost entirely conditioned by discourse constraints rather than syntactic requirements. The order of words within noun and verb phrases is somewhat stricter, but even there relatively few unbreakable rules are encountered.

Generally speaking, Praseo word order is ''head-first'' or ''right-branching''.

== Within the noun phrase ==

Noun phrases are typically ''head-first'', meaning that the noun which heads the phrase will be the first element in the phrase. Markers for case and number and deictic prefixes are attached to the noun itself, and so don't enter into considerations of word order. There are only two kinds of additional non-morphological modifiers which can be attached to a noun: possessives and participial phrases.

Notably, Praseo lacks prepositional phrases in noun clauses; as in classical Latin, prepositional phrases are only allowed at the sentence level. Additionally, there is no lexical class of adjectives, as the role of adjectives is filled by stative participles.

=== Genitives ===

Genitives are marked on both the possessor and the possessum in Praseo, with the possessum treated as the head. The possessum is marked with the ''construct'' case (regardless of what syntactic role it plays in the clause) and usually comes first, while the possessor is marked with the ''genitive'' case and usually follows the possessum. In the case where the possessor is reduced to a pronoun, the pronoun is indicated with a pronominal suffix.

<pre>čihei enzande
hand-CONS sister-GEN</pre>
''(my) sister's hand''

Praseo disfavors chains of genitives such as "my mother's sister's husband", except when the second possessive element is a pronoun. In this case, word order is used to establish who owns what, with each construct-case noun possessing the noun immediately in front of it:

<pre>čihei enzeiśa
hand-CONS sister-CONS-your</pre>
''your sister's hand''

When a genitive occurs modifying the same head as a prepositional phrase or a participle, then the genitive possessor is moved before the possessum:

<pre>enzande čihei jilašesu
sister-GEN hand-CONS burnt</pre>
''the sister's burnt hand''

=== Participial phrases ===

Participial phrases fill many of the roles played by adjectives and relative clauses in English. As a rule, the participial phrase follows the noun which is its head. The head of the noun is the nominal "subject" of the participle.

The simplest participial phrases are those which are formed with a stative participle, which is functionally similar to an adjective.

<pre>śu yaoeo
coat be-blue-PART</pre>
''the blue coat''

Participles formed from transitive verbs may take objects, which are case-marked as they would be for a transitive verb. The object of the participle is usually between the head noun and the participle, though either order is possible (as illustrated below).

<pre>yira hapẽo śeśẽ
boy corn-ACC crush-ACT_PART</pre>
''the boy crushing corn''

<pre>dusu saozeo rakuśu
bird fear-PART hawk-DAT</pre>
''the bird that fears the hawk''

Ditransitive participles formed from causatives follow the same rules as above, though in this case there is a preference to disambiguate by putting the verb between the two object arguments.

<pre>enze yirẽoa śeśẽi me hapẽo
sister boy-ACC crush-CAUS-PART corn-ACC</pre>
''the sister who makes the boy crush corn''

Within longer and more complex participial phrases such as the one above, word order will largely be driven by discourse constraints, as discussed below for sentence-level word order.

== Within the verb phrase ==

The verb phrase in Praseo is simpler than the noun phrase, for the reason that almost all morphosyntactic information in Praseo is present morphologically on the verb. There are only two important word order constraints.

All else equal, verbs precede their objects.

<pre>Yira śeśya hapẽo.
boy crush corn</pre>
''The boy crushes corn.''

The [[Praseo%20verbs#Modal%20particles|modal particles]] necessarily come at the end of the sentence, which means that the verb's object (or anything else) may come between the verb and the model particle(s).

<pre>Yira śeśya hapẽo ta ka.
boy crush corn IMP INT</pre>
''Does the boy have to crush the corn?''

== Within the sentence ==

As discussed above, Praseo is head-first by default. What this means is that the sentence-level word order defaults to the following:

* Subjects precede predicates
* Verbs precede objects within the predicate

This in turn means that the default word order in SVO. However, only a fraction of all attested sentences actually use this word order, because in practice sentence-level word order is largely driven by discourse considerations.

For discussing discourse in Praseo, we define the following two terms: '''focus''' is the part of the utterance which represents new information or contrastive information; that is, information which has not previously been asserted in the context of the sentence, or information which contrasts with the shared background beliefs of the speaker and hearer. The '''topic''' is the part of the utterance which represents background information or non-contrastive information, that is, information which has already been introduced or which is unsurprising within the shared beliefs of the interlocutors. Any syntactic element (subject, object, or verb) may occupy any discourse role.

The basic word-order rule for Praseo is that ''focus'' comes at the beginning of the utterance, and ''topic'' comes at the end. Topics are frequently reduced to pronouns and may be omitted entirely when the intent is sufficiently clear, while focus elements tend to be full noun phrases.

What follows is a short example conversation with commentary on the various word-order strategies which the participants use.

<pre>A: Enzeiśa tezẽ nioa hutsyaśu.
Brother-CONS-your hunt-PART I see-PERF</pre>
''A: I saw your brother hunting.''

A begins the conversation by putting the brother in the focus position. The brother is in the construct case, as it's occurs with the possessive suffix ''-śa'', but implicitly it's the object of the verb ''hutsya'' "to see".

<pre>B: Matsyulu patsẽo ka?
Catch-PRET something-ACC INT</pre>
''B: Had he caught anything?''

B responds by putting the verb ''matsya'' into the focused position at the beginning of his question, because the catching is the primary event of interest. Note that occurring in the focus position, the verb undergoes the mutation of the vowel of the aspect ending, as described [[Praseo_verbs#Focus%20marking|here]]. The brother, who was the focus of the preceding statement, is here the topic and doesn't occur overtly at all.

<pre>A: Basẽo yata.
Quail-ACC only</pre>
''A: Only a quail.''

A responds with the quail, the answer to B's question, in the focus position, marked with the accusative case. The implied verb here is ''matsya'' "to catch", as in the previous sentence, but that verb is now part of the topic and is omitted as being obvious from context.

<pre>B: Nila eolya nihaši se.
He be-upset tonight PRO</pre>
''B: Then he'll be unhappy tonight.''

Here B puts his brother back in the focus position, but since his identity has already been established he is referred to merely with a pronoun. The relative ordering of the verb ''eolya'' "be unhappy" and the adverb ''nihaši'' "tonight" is indifferent, but the prospective modal particle ''se'' must come at the end of the sentence.

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-[[Category:Prasa]][[Category:Praseo language]]
+[[Category:Prasa]] [[Category:Praseo language]]
 = Word order =
@@ Line 7: / Line 8: @@
 Generally speaking, Praseo word order is ''head-first'' or ''right-branching''.
 == Within the noun phrase ==
-Noun phrases are typically ''head-first'', meaning that the noun which heads the phrase will be the first element in the phrase. Markers for case and number and deictic prefixes are attached to the noun itself, and so don't enter into considerations of word order. There are only two kinds of additional non-morphological modifiers which can be attached to a noun: possessives and participial phrases.
+Noun phrases are typically ''head-first'', meaning that the noun which heads the phrase will be the first element in the phrase. Markers for case and number and deictic prefixes are attached to the noun itself, and so don’t enter into considerations of word order. There are only two kinds of additional non-morphological modifiers which can be attached to a noun: possessives and participial phrases.
 Notably, Praseo lacks prepositional phrases in noun clauses; as in classical Latin, prepositional phrases are only allowed at the sentence level. Additionally, there is no lexical class of adjectives, as the role of adjectives is filled by stative participles.
 === Genitives ===
@@ Line 19: / Line 22: @@
 <pre>čihei     enzande
 hand-CONS sister-GEN</pre>
-''(my) sister's hand''
+''(my) sister’s hand''
-Praseo disfavors chains of genitives such as &quot;my mother's sister's husband&quot;, except when the second possessive element is a pronoun. In this case, word order is used to establish who owns what, with each construct-case noun possessing the noun immediately in front of it:
+Praseo disfavors chains of genitives such as “my mother’s sister’s husband”, except when the second possessive element is a pronoun. In this case, word order is used to establish who owns what, with each construct-case noun possessing the noun immediately in front of it:
 <pre>čihei     enzeiśa
 hand-CONS sister-CONS-your</pre>
-''your sister's hand''
+''your sister’s hand''
 When a genitive occurs modifying the same head as a prepositional phrase or a participle, then the genitive possessor is moved before the possessum:
@@ Line 31: / Line 34: @@
 <pre>enzande    čihei     jilašesu
 sister-GEN hand-CONS burnt</pre>
-''the sister's burnt hand''
+''the sister’s burnt hand''
 === Participial phrases ===
-Participial phrases fill many of the roles played by adjectives and relative clauses in English. As a rule, the participial phrase follows the noun which is its head. The head of the noun is the nominal &quot;subject&quot; of the participle.
+Participial phrases fill many of the roles played by adjectives and relative clauses in English. As a rule, the participial phrase follows the noun which is its head. The head of the noun is the nominal “subject” of the participle.
 The simplest participial phrases are those which are formed with a stative participle, which is functionally similar to an adjective.
@@ Line 61: / Line 65: @@
 Within longer and more complex participial phrases such as the one above, word order will largely be driven by discourse constraints, as discussed below for sentence-level word order.
 == Within the verb phrase ==
@@ Line 71: / Line 76: @@
 ''The boy crushes corn.''
-The [[Praseo%20verbs#Modal%20particles|modal particles]] necessarily come at the end of the sentence, which means that the verb's object (or anything else) may come between the verb and the model particle(s).
+The [[Praseo%20verbs#Modal%20particles|modal particles]] necessarily come at the end of the sentence, which means that the verb’s object (or anything else) may come between the verb and the model particle(s).
 <pre>Yira śeśya hapẽo ta  ka.
@@ Line 77: / Line 82: @@
 ''Does the boy have to crush the corn?''
 == Within the sentence ==
@@ Line 96: / Line 102: @@
 ''A: I saw your brother hunting.''
-A begins the conversation by putting the brother in the focus position. The brother is in the construct case, as it's occurs with the possessive suffix ''-śa'', but implicitly it's the object of the verb ''hutsya'' &quot;to see&quot;.
+A begins the conversation by putting the brother in the focus position. The brother is in the construct case, as it’s occurs with the possessive suffix ''-śa'', but implicitly it’s the object of the verb ''hutsya'' “to see”.
 <pre>B: Matsyulu   patsẽo        ka?
@@ Line 102: / Line 108: @@
 ''B: Had he caught anything?''
-B responds by putting the verb ''matsya'' into the focused position at the beginning of his question, because the catching is the primary event of interest. Note that occurring in the focus position, the verb undergoes the mutation of the vowel of the aspect ending, as described [[Praseo_verbs#Focus%20marking|here]]. The brother, who was the focus of the preceding statement, is here the topic and doesn't occur overtly at all.
+B responds by putting the verb ''matsya'' into the focused position at the beginning of his question, because the catching is the primary event of interest. Note that occurring in the focus position, the verb undergoes the mutation of the vowel of the aspect ending, as described [[Praseo_verbs#Focus%20marking|here]]. The brother, who was the focus of the preceding statement, is here the topic and doesn’t occur overtly at all.
 <pre>A: Basẽo     yata.
@@ Line 108: / Line 114: @@
 ''A: Only a quail.''
-A responds with the quail, the answer to B's question, in the focus position, marked with the accusative case. The implied verb here is ''matsya'' &quot;to catch&quot;, as in the previous sentence, but that verb is now part of the topic and is omitted as being obvious from context.
+A responds with the quail, the answer to B’s question, in the focus position, marked with the accusative case. The implied verb here is ''matsya'' “to catch”, as in the previous sentence, but that verb is now part of the topic and is omitted as being obvious from context.
 <pre>B: Nila eolya    nihaši  se.
     He   be-upset tonight PRO</pre>
-''B: Then he'll be unhappy tonight.''
+''B: Then he’ll be unhappy tonight.''
-Here B puts his brother back in the focus position, but since his identity has already been established he is referred to merely with a pronoun. The relative ordering of the verb ''eolya'' &quot;be unhappy&quot; and the adverb ''nihaši'' &quot;tonight&quot; is indifferent, but the prospective modal particle ''se'' must come at the end of the sentence.
+Here B puts his brother back in the focus position, but since his identity has already been established he is referred to merely with a pronoun. The relative ordering of the verb ''eolya'' “be unhappy” and the adverb ''nihaši'' “tonight” is indifferent, but the prospective modal particle ''se'' must come at the end of the sentence.
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