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Grammar

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Main article: Navajo grammar

Navajo is a language based first and foremost around its verbs. Generally, a Navajo verb will convey most of the information of its host sentence, using affixes to express a variety of categories. Its morphology is highly synthetic: its nouns contain an average of four to five morphemes, while its verbs contain an average of eleven.[1] There is great deal of irregular fusion at morpheme boundaries and frequent use of null affixes,[2][3] making Navajo less cleanly agglutinative and more fusional than many other native languages of the Americas.[2][4][5][6][7]

In terms of basic word order, Navajo is usually classified as a subject–object–verb language.[8][9] However, nouns are also not marked for case. In situations when the subject and object of a transitive verb would receive an identical third-person pronomial marker (see below), the agent and recipient of an action are disambiguated by word order, as in this example.[10]

However, some speakers order the subject and object based on "noun ranking". In this system, nouns are ranked in three categories—humans, animals, and inanimate objects—and within these categories, nouns are ranked by strength, size, and intelligence. Whichever of the subject and object has a higher rank comes first. As a result, the agent of an action may be syntactically ambiguous.[11] Other linguists such as Eloise Jelinek consider Navajo to be a discourse configurational language, in which word order is not fixed by syntactic rules, but determined by pragmatic factors in the communicative context.[12] However, Navajo includes a fourth person in addition to the first three; in cases of ambiguity, some speakers will use the fourth-person for the subject and third-person for the object. This phenomenon is known as yi-/bi- alternation, after yi- and bi-, the standard fourth- and third-person singular object prefixes.[13]

Navajo is classified as "noun–genitive": in possessive noun phrases, the possessor precedes the possessed object.[14] Navajo is a head-marking language: postpositions and possessed nouns are marked with pronomial prefixes, e.g. tsáask'eh biyaa ("under the bed"), shimá ("my mother"), Gary bikéé' ("behind Gary"). In these examples, shi- marks the first-person singular and bi- the third-person singular.[15] Relative clauses are internally headed: they can stand alone as grammatical sentences because, at the very least, a subject pronoun is always affixed to the verb.[14] Pronomial verb affixes exist in both nominative (subject) and accusative (object) forms; for example, the third-person singular is -Ø- in the nominative but -bi- in the accusative.[16] Navajo is classified as a nominative–accusative language: transitive verbs take the same pronouns as the subjects of intransitive verbs.[14]

Similarly, most nouns are not inflected for number. Instead, the verb is affixed.[17]

Number marking on nouns occurs only for terms of kinship and age-sex groupings. Other prefixes that can be added to nouns include possessive markers (e.g. chidí – car; shichidí – my car) and a few adjectival enclitics (e.g. -tsoh [big] in beeʼeldǫǫhtsoh [cannon – lit. explosion-big]). Generally, an upper limit for prefixes on a noun is about four or five.[18]

Navajo does not contain a single part of speech analogous to adjectives; rather, some verbs describe static qualitative attributes (e.g. nitsaa – he/she/it is large), and demonstrative adjectives (e.g. díí – this, these) are their own part of speech. However, these verbs, known as "neuter verbs", are distinguished by only having the imperfective[clarification needed] mode, as they describe continuous states of being.[19] While demonstrative adjectives precede nouns, descriptive noun modifiers, which are actually qualitative verbs used as relative clauses, follow nouns. Action verbs used as relative clauses also follow nouns. While Navajo does not require a copula for descriptive verbs, it does not allow a zero copula for equating two nominals; the verb whose base is nilį́ (with ni- as the lexical prefix[clarification needed] and -lį́ as the imperfective stem) means "to be".[14]

Because the presence of tones would complicate the use of intonation to express yes–no questions, as English uses, interrogation is accomplished by using the sentence-initial particle da', the noun-final affix -ísh, or both.[20] Negation is expressed by framing the verb with the words doo and da, e.g. mósí doo nitsaa da ("the cat is not big"), or simply by preceding it with doo. Dooda, as a single word, signifies the interjection "no".[17] Navajo has no dedicated imperative verb form;[14] instead, the desired verb is simply conjugated into the second person as normal; for example, naniné can mean either "you are playing" or "play!".[21]

Clauses are coordinated with dóó ("and", which also serves as a conjunction for noun phrases) and 'áádóó ("and then").[22] Navajo marks adverbs and subordinate clauses with the verb suffix -go (often reduced to -o or -ǫ), as in chahałhiiło ("when it is dark"). A common use of this suffix is to mark constructions like "I didn't know", "I thought that", or "it is said that", which, unlike in English, are treated as subordinate clauses rather than the focus of the sentence.[16]

Navajo: Háágóóshį́í d-ee-kai doo shił b-éé-hó-Ø-zin-o.
Gloss: where (lexical prefix)-3PL.NOM-go.PERF NEG 1SG-accordingto 3SG.ACC-about-(spatial)-3SG.NOM-know.IMPF
English: I didn't know where they were setting out for.

The verb is based on a stem. On an etymological level, this stem is made of a root to identify the action and the semblance of a suffix to convey mode and aspect; however, this suffix is fused beyond separability.[23] The stem is given prefixes to indicate, in this order, the following information: postpositional object, postposition, adverb-state, iterativity, number, direct object pronoun, deictic information, another adverb-state, mode and aspect, subject pronoun, and classifier (see below). Some of these prefixes may be null,[3] and only the mode/aspect, subject, classifier, and stem are absolutely necessary, so verbs are generally shorter than might be expected.[3]

Classificatory verbs are a set of eleven particles[24] used for transitive verbs to mark the object being acted on.[25] These particles are listed here with their standard names.[24]

For example, Navajo has no single verb that corresponds to the English to give. To say "give me some hay", the Navajo verb níłjool (Non-Compact Matter) must be used, while for "give me a cigarette" the verb nítįįh (SSO) must be used. Navajo also contains a separate system of classifiers to mark whether a verb is transitive in the first place. There are four classifiers: -Ø-, -ł-, -d-, and -l-. The -ł- classifier indicates causation, e.g. yibéézh "it's boiling" (yi-Ø-béézh) vs. yiłbéézh "he's boiling it" (yi-ł-béézh). The -d- and -l- classifiers indicate transitivity, e.g. yizéés "he's singeing it" (yi-Ø-zéés) vs. yidéés "it's being singed" (yi-d-zéés). The -d- classifier is used to transitivize verbs with -Ø-, while -l- is used for verbs with -l-.[26]

References

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  1. ^ Bowerman & Levinson 2001, p. 239
  2. ^ a b Mithun 2001, p. 323
  3. ^ a b c McDonough 2003, pp. 21–22
  4. ^ Young & Morgan 1992, p. 841
  5. ^ Sloane 2001, p. 442
  6. ^ Johansen & Ritzker 2007, p. 421
  7. ^ Bowerman & Levinson 2001, p. 238
  8. ^ "Datapoint Navajo / Order of Subject, Object and Verb". WALS. Retrieved September 1, 2014.
  9. ^ Tomlin, Russell S. (2014). "Basic Word Order: Functional Principles". Routledge Library Editions Linguistics B: Grammar: 115.
  10. ^ Speas 1990, p. 203
  11. ^ Young & Morgan 1992, pp. 902–903
  12. ^ Fernald & Platero 2000, pp. 252–287
  13. ^ Young & Morgan 1987, pp. 65–66
  14. ^ a b c d e "Language Navajo". WALS. 2005. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
  15. ^ Speas 1990, p. 204
  16. ^ a b Luraghi & Parodi 2013, p. 43
  17. ^ a b Young & Morgan 1992, p. 882
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference Mueller 2008 12 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ Young & Morgan 1992, p. 934
  20. ^ McDonough, Joyce. "The Prosody of Interrogative and Focus Constructions in Navajo" (PDF). University of Rochester. Retrieved December 22, 2014.
  21. ^ Faltz 1998, p. 232
  22. ^ Fernald, Theodore B.; Perkins, Ellavina T. "Navajo Coordination" (PDF). Swarthmore College, Navajo Language Academy. Retrieved December 22, 2014.
  23. ^ Eddington, David; Lachler, Jordan. "A Computational Analysis of Navajo Verb Stems" (PDF). Brigham Young University. Retrieved August 11, 2014.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  24. ^ a b Christiansen 2009, pp. 185–186
  25. ^ Beck 2006, pp. 374–375
  26. ^ Faltz 1998, pp. 40–41
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