5MOYD – Page 2 – A Kleptomaniac's Conlang

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tà xi-kíípaá-a

1sO NEG.IMPV-fight-2/3

‘Don't fight with me.’

not much to say here, but I might explain some stuff about Hapi imperatives. Inspired by Jarawara, an Arawá language from Southern Amazonia, Hapi distinguishes three types of imperatives. There's the proximal positive imperative tà-, the distal positive imperative hi- and the negative imperative xi-. All three of those go into the 'mode' slot of the verb stratum. In this context, proximal and distal imperative refer to the deixis of the expressed event, e.g. "do it here/now" for proximal and "do it in some distant time or place" for distal imperatives. In this example, the negative imperative xi- is employed to yield a negative reading of the imperative
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pihi=á tà-háa-a tà-ihxoì-a koí kì-tóíh-a-xapa

girl=VOC IMPV-go-2/3 IMPV-clean-2/3 hut 3SG:POSS-be.tidy-NMZ-PURP

‘Girl, go now and clean the hut in order for it to be tidy.’

since this is an example containing an imperative, let us talk about Hapi imperatives. Inspired by Jarawara, an Arawá language from Southern Amazonia, Hapi distinguishes three types of imperatives. There's the proximal positive imperative tà-, the distal positive imperative hi- and the negative imperative xi-. All three of those go into the 'mode' slot of the verb stratum. In this context, proximal and distal imperative refer to the deixis of the expressed event, e.g. "do it here/now" for proximal and "do it in some distant time or place" for distal imperatives.
this is also an example for a sequential SVC. More on that in an upcoming reddit post of mine!
Hapi expresses purposive meanings using nominalizations + the marker -xapa. The verb stem is first nominalized by the suffix -(h)a, and subsequently receives a possessive prefix which is concordant to the subject of the purposive clause. Finally, the purposive suffix -xapa is attached.
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tàah pahíki-xí hása xóóh ihxoì-xí=kóa pàah-hóo paixàì kì-xàa-ha-tah

1sA submerge-REC.PAST loincloth FRUST.TRANS wash-REC.PAST=DECL river-LOC dirty 3SG:POSS-be-NMZ-PERL

‘I washed the shirt in the river in vain, because it was (still) dirty (afterwards).’

In this example, a discontiguous SVC is present. The chain of verbs is interrupted by hása as the verb object and xóóh as a particle. If you want to know more on SVCs in Hapi, good, because I will post something about them soon: 😉
In Hapi, to form an adverbial subordinate clause, the verb is nominalized and then receives a clause-specific morpheme. For temporal adverbial clauses, this is the locative marker -hóo, for purposive adverbial clauses it's the purposive marker -xapa and for causal clauses, as in this case, it's the perlative case marker -tah.
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tài xáoh-soa koìh káh+xo-xí hioà-xí=kóa

DEM.PROX crab-PL 3PL:A held.up+down-REC.PAST be.tied-REC.PAST=DECL

‘As for the crabs, they held them down on the floor, tying them together’

to be quite honest, there's not much to add here. One notable morphosyntactic feature might be the switch-subject serial verb construction, in which the object of the first verb is the subject of the second verb. This context may be formalized as follows: O₁ = S₂/A₂
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hao hóh-óh sa-xí=kóa saatóh-táa kói-soa==ó xah hóhi-xí póói-xí=kóa==ó sáá=àiho tàa-xí=kóa

DEM.DIST man-ERG cut-REC.PAST=DECL some-CL:banana banana-PL==SEQ 3PL.O take-REC.PAST come-REC.PAST=DECL==SEQ eat=VDIM AUX-REC.PAST=DECL

‘That man cut some bananas, took them and came (here) and ate a little.’

this example showcases the function of a sequential verb construction. In this type of multiverb construction, all participating verbs take the sequential clitic ==ó. This yields a meaning of subsequent events that are seen as separate units. If a series of events is seen as one singular event, it would probably be expressed using a serial verb construction.
the verbal diminutive auxiliary àiho is an affixing auxiliary, which means that the lexical head is prefixed to it, while most of the inflection is taken up by the auxiliary verb tàa.
this is a prime example of the discourse perseverance of the recent past marker -xí. Since all events in the narrative fall into the scope of the recent past, ie. all events have occurred between immediately and up to three days prior to speech time, the marker appears on every verb in the complex.
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sóasih-a=poh h́-akaó kòhóo íhaí-a=ka==kaí

spirit-PL=TOPIC 1SG:POSS-daughter ABIL speak.with-2/3=DECL==NVIS

‘As for ghosts, my daughter can speak with them.’

the topic disjunct affix =poh marks a noun for being the topic of the discourse; this contrast's with the constituent which is in focus: while the topic is usually encoded by the topic marker, the focus is not marked, but it is instead fronted (the topicalized noun is also fronted, but additionally receives the topic marker)
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