Georg S. A Descriptive Grammar of Ket (Yenisei-Ostyak) (The Languages of Northern and Central Eurasia)

Global Oriental, 2007. — 328 p.Linguists and specialists on Siberia are generally familiar with the name Ket, which designates a small ethnic group on the Yenisei and their language, widely regarded as a linguistic enigma in many respects. Ket is a severely endangered language with today less than 500 native speakers. Together with Yugh, Kott, Arin, Assan and Pumpokol, all of which are completely extinct, it forms the Yeniseic family of languages, which has no known linguistic relatives. This "Grammar of Ket" constitutes the first book of its kind in English and is structured as follows: Introduction; The Kets and their Language; Phonology; Morphology; and References.The Kets and their Language
Avant-propos: The name of the language
The Yeniseic family of languages
Yugh
Kott
Assan
Arin
Pumpokol
Yeniseic as a language family
External genetic relationships of Yeniseic
The Kets and their language
The homeland of the Kets
Ket dialects
Southern Ket
Central Ket
Northern Ket
Map of the Ket area
Sociolinguistic situation
Ket traditional culture
The areal setting of Ket and Yeniseic
History of the investigation of Ket/Yeniseic
Author's fieldwork
Notational conventions and façons de parler
The verbal formula
The notation of Ket words
Interlinear glosses
Verb paradigms
Abbreviations
A note on the sources of this grammar
Phonology
Tone and prosody
Tone on monosyllabic stems
Disyllabic contours
Tone/accent in polysyllabic words
Vowels
Vowel phonemes
Segmental allophony
Consonants
Consonant phonemes
Segmental allophony
Phonotactics
Syllable structure
Distribution of phonemes
Consonant clusters
Morphology
Nouns and adjectives
Substantive nouns
Class
Morphological characteristics of noun classes
Semantic characteristics of noun classes
Nouns of class m not denoting male humans
Nouns of class f not denoting female humans
Number
Singular and singulative
Plural
Traces of natural dual, or paral
Plural markers
Plural characterized by suffixes
Morphologically uncharacterized plural
Plural characterized by vocalic "ablaut"
Plural characterized by tone change
Plural characterized by tone change and "ablaut"
Contractive plural formation
Suppletive plural forms
Irregular plural forms
Functions of the plural
Case
Nominative
Subject
Object
Genitive
Dative
Benefactive
Ablative
Adessive
Locative
Prosecutive
Instrumental
Abessive
Translative
Vocative
Floating case
Predicative use of case forms
Possession
Derivation and compounding of substantive nouns
The Nominalizer -s
-ŋ
Compounding
Contact compounds
Plural forms of contact compounds
Genitive-linked compounds
Plural forms of genitive-linked compounds
Frequent parts of compounds, or "semi-affixes"
Frequent determiners ("semi-prefixes")
Frequent heads in compounds ("semi-suffixes")
-aj "container"
-(al/el)-kit diminutive
-has "step-"
-ad "bone"
-dis "small round object"
-es/-as "sky, weather"
-lamt "piece"
-oks "wooden object"
-ol "cover"
-qus "dwelling place"
Complex nominal compounds
Adjectives
Formal characteristics of adjectives
Attributive use of adjectives
Predicative use of adjectives
Comparison
Derivation of adjectives
-tu
-(V)m
Adjectival compounds
Adverbs and postpositions
Local/spatial adverbs
Temporal adverbs
Adverbs of manner and degree
Postpositions
The postposition ákit "behind"
The postposition bāl "between"
The postposition kɨ̄ka "in the middle of, among"
The postposition ít(i)l "beside"
The postposition ə́lkitka "before, in front of"
The postposition əət "on, on top of"
The postposition hɨ́t(ɨ)ka "under"
The postposition íka "in"
The postposition -īl(ka) "beside"
The postposition kāl "behind, on the other side"
The postposition útsil "near, in the vicinity"
The postposition ɨ́ndi "under"
The postposition às, aas "like, as, similar as"
The postposition bínamt "without"
The postposition daan "when, while, during"
The postposition dó(q)ot "for, on behalf of"
The postposition dúkde "during, while, as long as"
The pseudo-postposition ésa~
The postposition q¡n, qòn "up to, until"
The postposition séjbes "instead of, in place of"
"Prepositions"
Pronouns
Personal pronouns
Possessive pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
Interrogative pronouns
Relative pronouns and interrogative relativizers
Indefinite pronouns
Emphatic/reflexive pronouns
Reciprocal pronouns
Numerals and quantifiers
Cardinal numerals
Ordinal numerals
Multiplicative and distributive numerals
Quantifiers
Verbs
General overview - Categories
Position class
The five conjugations
Conjugation I
Conjugation II
Conjugation III
Conjugation IV
Conjugation V
Mixed paradigms
Morphotactic rules
The surface realization of the P8 marker 3SGf /da/
Truncation and elision
Truncation Rule 1 (TR1)
Truncation Rule 2 (TR 2)
Truncation Rule 3 (TR 3)
Truncation Rule 4 (TR 4)
Truncation Rule 5 (TR 5)
Truncation Rule 6 (TR 6)
Truncation Rule 7 (TR 7)
Truncation Rule 8 (TR 8)
Truncation Rule 9 (TR 9)
Truncation Rule 10 (TR 10)
Truncation Rule 11 (TR 11)
Vowel insertion (anaptyxis)
Vowel insertion Rule 1 (VIR 1)
Vowel insertion Rule 2 (VIR 2)
Vowel insertion Rule 3 (VIR 3)
Vowel insertion Rule 4 (VIR 4)
Vowel insertion Rule 5 (VIR 5)
Morphotactic separators
Separator Rule 1 (SR 1)
Separator Rule 2 (SR 2)
Separator Rule 3 (SR 3)
Separator Rule 4 (SR 4)
Separator Rule 5 (SR 5)
Separator Rule 6 (SR 6)
Separator Rule 7 (SR 7)
Separator Rule 8 (SR 8)
Separator Rule 9 (SR 9)
Separator Rule 10 (SR 10)
Separator Rule 11 (SR 11)
Separator Rule 12 (SR 12)
"Feminine Object Rule" (FOR).
Syncope (Sync)
Pre-root anaptyxis
The individual position classes (Morpheme Slots)
R - the root morpheme
Suppletivism
Full suppletivism
Partial (or "pseudo-") suppletivism
The b- ~ k- alternation
Semantically bleached roots or "pseudo-affixes"
P7 incorporate
Incorporable lexical morphemes
Incorporated nouns
Incorporated adjectives
Incorporated adverbs
Incorporated verbs (infinitives)
An incorporated particle
Paradigmatic incorporation
Formal characteristics of P7 incorporates
Light and heavy P7 incorporate
The pseudo-incorporate bin7-
Pseudo-suppletivism of P7 incorporates
-s/-j
-j/-k
Morphologically complex P7 incorporates
Recursive incorporation
Pluralized P7 incorporates
An iterative suffix in P7
The causative morpheme - a suffix in position P7
"Determiners": flotsam between P7 and P4
Determiners in P5 (and co-occupying P6)
The determiner k
The determiner t
The determiner n
The determiner h
The determiner d
The determiner q
The determiner ŋ
PL - the subject plural
The distribution of PL suffixes
The shape of PL suffixes
P8
P8 actant morphemes - the "D-series"
Petrified P8 da- in "impersonal" verbs
P6 actant morphemes - the "B-series"
Person markers and thematic a in P4
P4 actant markers
a4 as "thematic" marker
Preterite-labialization of P4 /a/, /aŋ/
Inanimate object/subject markers and petrified b in P3
Actant b3
Non-actant (petrified) b3
P1
Actant-marking P1
a1 as a petrified resultative marker
P2: preterite and imperative
The P2 preterite markers il and in
Other preterite markers
The preterite marker ij
The pseude-preterite marker q
Mood and tense
Present, preterite, and future
Imperative and prohibitive
Imperatives in conjugation I
Imperatives in conjugation II
Imperatives in conjugation III
Imperatives in conjugation IV
Common irregularities found in imperative forms
The erosion of the P2 marker il
Assimilations
The erosion of velar and uvular consonants
Marginal phenomena in irregular imperative forms
Prohibitive forms
Analytically expressed moods
The irrealis particle sīm
The optative particle qān
Derived categories
Causatives
Iteratives
Inchoatives
Nominal verb forms
Infinitive and participle
Copulae, existentials, and predicative particles
The null-copula and the past tense copula òbɨlda
(Non-) existentials
Predicative concord suffixes
Problematic and idiosyncratic verb-paradigms
Other parts-of-speech
Particles and conjunctions
Interjections and ideophones