Palula Inflectional Morphology

Henrik Liljegren

Frontier Language Institute, 19F Khushal Khan Khattak Rd., U.T., Peshawar, Pakistan.

Department of Linguistics, Stockholm University, SE-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden.

Palula is spoken by approximately 10,000 people in the southern part of Chitral District in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. It is an Indo-Aryan language, most closely related to the variety of Shina spoken in the Indus Valley. The following is a summary of the commonly occurring forms of Palula nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verbs. Both of the two major dialects, spoken in the Ashret and Biori valleys respectively, are represented. (When the two dialects disagree, the Ashret form is displayed in green.) There is naturally a lot more to say about Palula inflectional morphology, and a fuller treatment is in preparation.

The analysis and the presentation are mine, but I would like to extend many thanks to the following dear Palula friends for taking time working with me and sharing their knowledge: Mr. Atiq Ullah, Biori; Mr. Atah Ullah, Biori; Mr. Nasim Haider, Ashret; Mr. Sher Haider, Ashret; and Mr. Sardar Hayat, Ashret.

Nouns

A noun in Palula belongs to one of two genders, masculine and feminine. It inflects for number (singular, plural) and case (nominative, oblique, genitive). The two tables below illustrate the inflectional morphology of a typical masculine noun and a typical feminine noun. Especially note the nominative-oblique distinction present in the masculine paradigm while being absent in the feminine one.

Table 1: Noun forms (masculine)

práacu ‘male guest’ (m.)

	Nominative	Oblique	Genitive
Singular	práacu	práaca	práacee práacii
Plural	práaca	práacam	práacamee práacamii

Table 2: Noun forms (feminine)

préeci ‘female guest’ (f.)

	Nominative	Genitive
Singular	préeci	préeciee préecii
Plural	préecim	préecimee préecimii

Apart from the above inflectional differences and the forms used for each category, there are other variations in distinctions or surface forms displayed due to inflectional class membership or inherent accent placement.

Pronouns

Like nouns, Palula pronouns make formal distinctions within the categories number and case (although the number of distinctions made and the dividing lines are not uniform throughout the system), while also distinguishing between first, second and third person, as well making a gender distinction with some third person referents. An additional feature is the spatial distinction made between proximal (=near to the speaker), distal (=away from the speaker but still visible) and remote (=not present or visible) third person referents. Most of the third person pronouns are used as demonstratives as well as personal pronouns.

Table 3: Personal pronouns

			Nominative	Oblique	Agentive	Genitive
1^st sg			ma		míi
2^nd sg			tu		t^híi
3^rd sg	prox	m	hanú~anú anú~nu	hanís~anís anís~nís	haní~aní aníi~níi	hanisée~ anisée anisíi~nisíi
		f	haní~aní aní~ni
	dist	m	har’ó~ar’ó~lo ar’ó~r’o~lo	har’és~ar’és~ les ar’és~r’es~ les	har’í~ar’í~li ar’íi~r’íi~líi	har’esée~ ar’esée~ lesée ar’esíi~r’esíi~ lesíi
		f	har’é~ar’é~le ar’é~r’e~le
	rem	m	hasó~so so	hatés~tes tas	hatí~ti tíi	hatesée~ tesée tasíi
		f	hasé~se se
1^st pl			be	asaám	asím	asée asíi
2^nd pl			tus	tusaám	tusím	tusée tusíi
3^rd pl	prox		haní~aní aní~ni	haninaám~ aninaám aninaám~ aniaám~ niaám	haniním~ aniním aniním~ niním	haninúme~ aninúme~ aniníie aniníi~niníi
	dist		har’é~ar’é~le ar’é~r’e~le	har’enaám~ ar’enaám~ lenaám ar’enaám~ r’enaám~ lenaám	har’ením~ ar’ením~ lením ar’ením~ r’ením~ lením	har’enúme~ ar’enúme~ leníie ar’eníi~r’eníi~ leníi
	rem		hasé~se se	hatenaám~ tenaám tanaám	hatením~ tením taním	hatenúme~ tenúme taníi

Beside a number of alternative pronunciations (separated with ~), there are, at least in the Ashret dialect, parallel forms with an added /ee-/ for all of the third person pronouns that signify emphasis or referential proximity: the parallel form for so is for instance eesó, and that for anís is eenís.

Adjectives

One main group of Palula adjectives agree in gender, number and case with the noun it modifies. However, no one adjective can occur in more than four distinct forms: the plural and the non-nominative agreement are formally identical when the head is masculine, and there is no case differentiation when the adjective modifies a feminine noun. The plural form with a final /-m/ seems somewhat instable, possibly being obligatory only for predicative feminine plural adjectives, whereas there is a fluctuation between the /–i/ and /–im/ forms when the adjective modifies a feminine plural noun.

Table 4: Adjective forms

pan’áar- ‘white’

	Singular nominative	Singular non-nominative	Plural
Masculine	pan’áaru	pan’áara
Feminine	pan’éeri		pan’éeri(m)

The other main group of Palula adjectives does not inflect at all, i.e. it occurs in one form only, and therefore show no agreement with the nominal head.

d’ang ‘hard’ – non-inflectable adjective

Verbs

The main inflectional verbal categories in Palula are aspect and mood, whereas tense plays a secondary role, not being fully part of the verb morphology. Most finite Palula verb forms could be placed in one of three “sub-paradigms”: a) an imperfective paradigm, b) a perfective paradigm, and c) an irrealis paradigm, all of them occurring with agreement markers.

The verb root in the examples below is c^hín- ‘cut (down)’.

Verbs in the imperfective always agree morphologically in gender and number with the subject, preceded by the imperfective marker (almost exclusively /-áan/ or its fronted variant /-éen/).

Table 5: Imperfective verb forms

c^hín-áan- ‘cut/cuts (down), is/are cutting (down)’

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	c^hináanu	c^hinéeni
Plural	c^hináana	c^hinéenim

Verbs in the perfective agree in gender and number with the intransitive subject, while in transitive clauses they agree with the direct object. The contrast with the imperfective aspect is either apparent from a perfective suffix directly attached to the verb stem (mostly /–íl/, but a /–t/ variant occurs with a number of very frequent verbs) or from a stem alternation. The forms in this paradigm are also used as perfective participles.

Table 6: Perfective verb forms

c^hín-íl- ‘cut (down), has/have cut (down)’

	Masculine	Feminine
Singular	c^hinílu	c^hiníli
Plural	c^hiníla	c^hinílim

An inceptive aspectual meaning is captured in the relatively rare forms c^hinas’áat- c^hinays’áat- ‘began cutting’, with the same gender/number suffixes as above attached at the end of the verb.

Verbs in the irrealis (often used with future reference) are unmarked for aspect and agree in person and number with the subject.

Table 7: Irrealis verb forms

c^hín- ‘will cut (down)’

	1^st	2^nd	3^rd
Singular	c^hínum	c^híner’ c^hínar’	c^híne c^hína
Plural	c^hiníia	c^hínet c^hínat	c^hínen c^hínan

Closely connected with irrealis is imperative. There are 2^nd person singular and 2^nd person plural imperative forms in Palula. The singular form is the same as the verb root for our example verb.

Table 8: Imperative verb forms

c^hín- ‘cut (down)!’

	2^nd
Singular	c^hin
Plural	c^hínuy c^hínoy

Palula also has some verb forms without agreement markers. A commonly occurring non-finite verb form is the conjunctive participle: c^hiní. It is particularly prevalent in narrative discourse, its meaning being close to ‘having cut’. The form c^hinay ‘to cut’ functions as an infinitive, and gives together with b^húulu b^hóolu and related forms the meaning: ‘was able to cut’ etc. Another frequently occurring non-finite form is c^hinanií c^hineynií ‘cutting, to cut’, which in fact is a nominalized verb that like nouns can be inflected for case. The verb form c^hinaand’éew c^hineend’éew ‘should be cut’ is also deprived of any agreement elements although having a more finite status in the clause than any of the just aforementioned verb forms.

Although not strictly belonging in the area of inflectional morphology, the most regular valence-increasing and valence-decreasing devices are -awá (or simply -á) and -j respectively. These morphological elements attach directly to the verb root, thus creating new verb stems to which inflections (below: perfective masculine singular) are then added.

Table 9: Valence change

‘was cut (by itself), fell’	‘cut’	‘to make (someone) cut’
c^hinjílu	c^hinílu	c^hinawúulu c^hinawóolu (c^hin-awa-íl-u)

First posted October 2005. Copyright © 2005 by Henrik Liljegren