The Nganasan language (formerly called , tavgiysky, or , tavgiysko-samoyedsky in Russian; from the ethnonym , tavgi) is a moribund Samoyedic language spoken by about 30 of the Nganasan people, who are native to the Taymyr Peninsula in northern Siberia, residing primarily in the settlements of Ust-Avam, Volochanka, and Novaya in the Taymyrsky Dolgano-Nenetsky District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, with smaller populations residing in the towns of Dudinka and Norilsk as well. It is notable for its unusual characteristics among the Samoyedic languages, as well among the greater Uralic languages.
Classification Nganasan is the most divergent language of the Samoyedic branch of the Uralic language family (Janhunen 1998). There are two main dialects, Avam (, ) and Vadeyev (). A large part of the vocabulary can be traced to elements of unknown substrate origin, which are roughly twice as common in Nganasan than in other Samoyedic languages such as Nenets or Enets, and bear no apparent resemblance to the neighboring Tungusic and Yukaghir languages. The source of this substrate remains a mystery so far. It is possible that this substrate represents the last remaining evidence of a now-extinct Paleo-Siberian language once spoken in the Taymyr Peninsula, which was later supplanted by Nganasan. The root of the word Nganasan itself is of non-Uralic origin.
Phonology Nganasan has 10 vowel phonemes and 21 consonant phonemes.
Vowels +Nganasan vowelsFrontCentralBackunroundedroundedCloseMidOpen Several disyllabic sequences of vowels are possible:
Second Vowel High Mid Lowrowspan="100%" - - - - +Non-High First Vowel-------əy-- The sequences // and // also occur, but only across morpheme boundaries.
The vowels and only occur in initial syllables.
Vowels can be divided two pairs of groups based on harmony: front vs back , and unrounded vs rounded . Backness harmony only applies to high vowels.
Front vowels do not occur after initial dental consonants.
do not occur after palatal consonants, as they have fronted to , although the first of these only happens in word-initial syllables.
does not occur after palatal consonants, having been neutralized into .
does not occur after labial consonants, having unrounded to in this position.
Consonants One of the main features of Nganasan is consonant gradation, which concerns the consonant phonemes alternating with and their nasal combinations with . +Nganasan consonantsBilabialDental/AlveolarPalatalVelarGlottalNasalPlosivevoicelessvoicedFricativeplainsibilantRhoticApproximantcentrallateral is labialized before and has the allophone before other consonants, although this can also be analyzed as an "unusual" allophone of has the allophone when not before a vowel is lenited to intervocalically
Orthography The language's Cyrillic-based alphabet was devised in the 1990s:
А а Б б В в Г г Д д Е е Ё ё Ж ж З з З̌ з̌ (З̆ з̆) И и Й й ˮ К к Л л М м Н н Ӈ ӈ О о Ө ө П п Р р С с Т т У у Ү ү Ф ф Х х Ц ц Ч ч Ш ш Щ щ Ъ ъ Ы ы Ь ь Э э Ә ә Ю ю Я я Cyrillic orthographyАБВГДЕЁЖЗЗ̌ИЙˮКЛМНӇОӨПРСТУҮФХЦЧШЩЪЫЬЭӘЮЯабвгдеёжзз̌ийклмнӈоөпрстуүфхцчшщъыьэәюяIPAjejo, -
Morphology
Nouns Nouns in Nganasan have the grammatical categories of number (singular, dual, plural), case (nominative, genitive, accusative, lative, locative, elative, prolative, comitative) and possessivity (non-possessive versus possessive forms). Nganasan lacks determiners; however, the possessive forms of second person singular and third person singular can be used to express definiteness.
+ Case suffixes in Nganasan Singular Dual Plural Nominative Ø -KƏJ -ʔ Accusative Ø ~ (-M) -KI -J Genitive Ø ~ (-Ŋ) -KI -ʔ Dative -NTƏ - -NTI-ʔ Locative -NTƏ-NU - -NTI-NU Ablative -KƏ-TƏ - -KI-TƏ, ~KI-TI-ʔ Prolative -MƏ-NU - -ʔ-MƏ-NU
Pronouns Nganasan has personal, demonstrative, interrogative, negative, and determinative pronouns. Personal pronouns are not inflected: their grammatical case forms coincide, and their local case forms are expressed by the corresponding possessed forms of the postposition na-. Other pronouns are inflected like nouns (Helimski, 1998).
+ Personal pronouns and pronominal formsNom, Gen, Acc LativeLocativeElativeProlative Personal pronouns + clitics Personal emphatic pronouns Sg1 mənə nanə nanunə nagətənə namənunə mɨlʲianə ŋonənə Sg2 tənə nantə nanuntə nagətətə namənuntə tɨlʲiatə ŋonəntə Sg3 sɨtɨ nantu nanuntu nagətətu namənuntu sɨlʲiatɨ ŋonəntu Du1 mi nani nanuni nagətəni namənuni mɨlʲiani ŋonəni Du2 ti nandi nanunti nagətəndi namənundi tɨlʲiati ŋonənti Du3 sɨti nandi nanunti nagətəndi namənundi sɨlʲiati ŋonənti Pl1 mɨŋ nanuʔ nanunuʔ nagətənuʔ namənunuʔ mɨlʲianɨʔ ŋonənuʔ Pl2 tɨŋ nanduʔ nanuntuʔ nagətənduʔ namənunduʔ tɨlʲiatiʔ ŋonəntuʔ Pl3 sɨtɨŋ nanduŋ nanuntuŋ nagətənduŋ namənunduŋ sɨlʲiatɨŋ ŋonəntuŋ
Verbs Verbs agree with their subjects in person and number, and have three conjugation types. Like other Samoyedic languages, Nganasan has the opposition of perfective and imperfective verbs.
Conjugation The subjective conjugation is used when there is no object or the object is focused. The objective conjugation is used with transitive words. The reflexive conjugation is used for some intransitive verbs. Each conjugation type has its own personal endings. There are three subtypes of objective conjugation endings that correspond to object number. SubjectiveObjectiveObjectless singular object dual object plural object 1Sg -m -mə -kəi-j-nə -j-nə -nə 2Sg -ŋ -rə -kəi-j-tə -j-tə -ŋ 3Sg ø -tu -kəi-j-tu -j-tu -ʔ or -tə 1Du -mi -mi -kəi-j-ni -j-ni -ni 2Du -ri -ri -kəi-j-ti -j-ti -nti 3Du -kəj -ði -kəi-j-ti -j-ti -nti 1Pl -muʔ -muʔ -kəi-j-nuʔ -j-nuʔ -nuʔ 2Pl -ruʔ -ruʔ -kəi-j-tu -j-tu -ntuʔ 3Pl -ʔ -tuŋ -kəi-j-tuŋ -j-tuŋ -ntəʔ
Mood Nganasan has a broad mood paradigm with nine forms: indicative, imperative, interrogative, inferential, renarrative, irrealis, optative, admissive-cohortive, debitive, abessive and prohibitive. Mood forms are mostly built with the help of affixation but special particles are also sometimes used. All mood forms, except the imperative, have the same personal suffixes. Tenses are distinguished in the indicative, imperative and interrogative moods (Tereščenko, 1979).
Aspect and tense Most corresponding imperfective and perfective stems have the same root, but in rare cases the roots can be different. The aspectual opposition between imperfective and perfective verbs remains semantic in most verbal forms. However, in the indicative mood it is used to express present continuous and present perfect meanings, respectively. In this case, the opposition is present formally: imperfective verbs take imperfective suffixes and the perfective ones have the perfective suffixes (Helimski, 1998). Imperfective verbs can also express future meanings. These forms are not considered tense in the strict sense. The proper tense forms of past and future include past, past perfect, future, future-in-the past (Katzschmann, 2008).
Non-finite verb forms + Participles Formation Example Present participle S1'-NTUə(-NCx)(-Px) koðutuə "which kills ~ which is killed" Preterite participle S1-SUə-Dʲəə(-NCx)(-Px) kotudʲüədʲəə "which killed ~ which was killed" Future participle S1'-ʔSUTə(-NCx)(-Px) koðuʔsutə "which will kill ~ which will be killed" Future-in-the-past participle S1'-ʔSUTə-Dʲəə(-NCx)(-Px koðuʔsutədʲəə "which was to kill ~ which was to be killed" Abessive participle S1-MəTUMA̩ʔ(-NCx)(-Px) kotumətumaʔa "which does not kill ~ which is not been killed" Preterite abessive participle S1-MəTUMA̩ʔA̩̥-Dʲəə(-NCx)(-Px) kotumətumaʔdʲəə "which did not kill ~ which was not killed" Passive participle S1-Məə(-NCx)(-Px) kotuməə "killed" Preterite passive participle S1-Məə-Dʲəə(-NCx)(-Px) kotuməədʲəə "which was killed"
+ Verbal adverbsFormationExample Verbal adverb S1-SA kotudʲa 'having killed', nʲisɪ̈ kotudʲa "having not killed" Verbal adverb of immediate precedence S1-KAJ-SA kotugasʲa "having just killed" Conditional-temporal verbal adverb S1-HÜʔ(-Px4) kotubüʔ "(if ~ when) to kill', kotubɪ̈nə 'if ~ when I kill", etc. Preterite temporal verbal adverb S1-HÜʔ-ə(-Cx))-Px) kotubüʔə "when killed', kotubüʔəmə "when I killed", etc. Future conditional verbal adverb S1-HÜʔ-NÜ-Px2 kotubününə "if I will kill"
+ Verbal nounsFormationExample Imperfective verbal noun S1-MUN(-Cx)(-Px) kotumu
sG kotumunə hireə "worth killing"
sLat niimsiəm kotomundə "I was afraid to kill"
sEla + s1 kotumu(ng)ətənə "so that I do not kill", etc. Perfective verbal noun(S3/S1')-ʔMUə(-Cx)(-Px)koðaʔmuə ~ koðuʔmuə
sLoc + s1 koðaʔmuəntənunə "where I killed", etc. Preterite verbal noun S1'-NTU(-Cx)(-Px)koðutu
sLat koðutundə "when killed"
koðutundənə "when I killed" SupineS1'-NAKə(-Px2)kotunakə
s3 kotunagətu "in order that he killed", etc.
Syntax
Word order The dominating word order in Nganasan is subject-object-verb (SOV), similar to other Samoyedic languages. However, Nganasan is considered to exhibit more freedom in word order than other languages of its group. According to Tereščenko (1979), other types of word orders are used for shifting the sentence focus, especially in emphatic speech. The focused constituent usually immediately precedes the verb. Wagner-Nagy (2010) suggests that Nganasan is similar to Hungarian in its behavior, in that its word order is determined by pragmatic factors rather than being fixed.
On the phrase level, the attributes within the noun phrase usually precede the noun and become focused when placed after it. Numerals and adjectives agree with the heads in case, and adjectives also agree with the head in number. The case agreement is only complete in grammatical cases; in locative cases the attribute gets genitive form. There are no prepositions in Nganasan, postpositions are composite parts of words and also require the attributes in genitive cases. Possession is expressed with genitive construction or by a possessive suffix attached to the possessed (Helimski, 1998; Katzschmann, 2008).
Nganasan is a pro-drop language; pronominal subjects are often omitted when the verb conjugation type is subjective (Tereščenko, 1979).
Negation Standard negation is expressed by negative auxiliary (ńi-) followed by the main verb in connegative form marked with ʔ, e.g. ńi-ndɨ-m konɨʔ "I do not go". All inflectional markers are taken by the negation auxiliary (Gusev, 2015). Objects in the form of personal, negative or demonstrative pronouns can be inserted between the negative auxiliary and the main verb (Wagner-Nagy, 2011). There are a few negative verbs other than ni-, such as kasa — "nearly", ləði — "vainly", əku — "maybe", and ŋuəli — "of course", but their functionality is restricted, with only ni- having a full paradigm.
Existential sentences are negated with the negative existential predicate d'aŋku or its derivative stem d'anguj-. D'aŋku can only be used in present indicative as it behaves like a noun: it takes nominal predicative endings. D'anguj- (a composite of d'aŋku and ij- "be") is used for all other tense/mood combinations.
Subordination Subordination is typically formed by constructions with non-finite verbal forms. Such constructions are usually placed before the constituents they modify. The relative construction is always placed immediately before the modified constituent, whereas other types of constructions allow other constituents to interfere. The word order in such construction is the same as in simple sentences (Tereščenko, 1973).
Coordination Coordination is most often achieved by means of intonation. Sometimes pronominal and adverbial derivatives can be used as conjunctions. For example, adverb ŋonə 'also' can be used as conjunction. The category of conjunctions may be undergoing formation under the influence of Russian (Tereščenko, 1973).
Education