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Qaqet noun suffixes: How their form changes

Text and illustrations by Sophia Stedman

Qaqet has suffixes that mark different noun classes (see “Learning Nouns”). These suffixes sometimes change their form based on the makeup of the root.

Here are the rules:

When a voiceless plosive (p, t, or k) appears in at the boundary of the root and the suffix, it is:

  • Lenited (turned into a voiced fricative/tap) between vowels, becoming <v>, <r>, or <q> respectively. Click here for our practical orthography.
  • Voiced (goes from a voiceless to a voiced consonant) after a nasal consonant, becoming <b>, <d>, or <g> respectively.
  • Simplified (two separate consonants become a single one), when two identical consonants follow each other, going from <t-t> to <t>, for example.
  • Left the same, in all other contexts.

When a vowel appears at the boundary of the root and the suffix, it is:

  • Simplified, when two identical vowels follow each other, going from <a-a> to <a>, for example.
  • Left the same, in all other contexts.
How to read linguistic notations
  • Following each Qaqet example, we give a translation (for the root) and a grammatical abbreviation (for the suffix).
  • As you can see, we use '-' and '.' in the notations.
    • The dash separates the meaningful parts of a Qaqet word (both in the Qaqet word and in the linguistic notation).
    • When the translation of a single Qaqet word requires more than one English word or when a suffix has more than one grammatic function, the period is used to separate them.
  • We use the following abbreviations:
AbbreviationMeaning
SGSingular
DUDual (referring to two of something)
PLPlural
FFeminine
MMasculine
DIMDiminutive class
RCDReduced class
FLATFlat class

Example 1: baata-ini (avocado-SG.DIM)


Example 2: maikmaik-ka (wild.betelnut-SG.M)


Example 3: unsim-ki (cassowary-SG.F)


Example 4: gurup-ka (rat-SG.M)


Example 5: malasi-iam (malasi.tree-DU.M)


Example 6: srlu-ki (grandchild-SG.F)


Example 7: tavet-im (year-DU.F)

solutions suffixes

Your guesses:

Example 1: (Click to enter your guess.)

Example 2: (Click to enter your guess.)

Example 3: (Click to enter your guess.)

Example 4: (Click to enter your guess.)

Example 5: (Click to enter your guess.)

Example 6: (Click to enter your guess.)

Example 7: (Click to enter your guess.)


Click here for the solutions.
Example 1baatainiLeft the same
Example 2maikmaikaSimplified
Example 3unsimgiVoiced
Example 4gurupkaLeft the same
Example 5malasiamShortened
Example 6srluqiLenited
Example 7taveraimLenited, with an exception

What’s ‘wrong’ with Example 7?

According to the rules listed above, the dual form of tavet would be taverim. However, the true form is actually taveraim. Why is that?

Open the Exceptions tab to find out!

Exceptions

There are some exceptions to the rules that you have learned (like in Example 7). These exceptions often tell us something about the history of the language.

  • For about 40 nouns, an additional a appears before a suffix. It is assumed that this a was part of the original root, but was only retained in the suffixed form (compare e.g. plural lames 'coconut' and singular lamesaqa (coconut.SG.M) - this suggests that the original root is not lames, but lamesa). This is what happened in taveraim (year.DU.F).
  • Several noun class suffixes show an additional b following a root-final m. The b appears with the singular suffixes of the reduced, flat, and long classes, the dual suffixes of the feminine and reduced classes, and the plural suffix of the reduced class (e.g. rluim-em (child-SG.RCD) realized as rluimbem). It is likely that b was originally part of these suffixes, but was only retained following m.
  • For about 20 nouns, an a appears in an unmarked (plural) root, but not in its suffixed (singular or dual) forms. In some cases, the a is left out entirely (e.g. iguany 'crab' --> igunygi (crab.SG.F)), in others it is changed to a different vowel. It is likely that the a is a part of the original root, but was only retained in the non-suffixed form.
  • For the suffixes -em (SG.RCD) and -es (SG.FLAT), there are variant forms: -um/-us and -im/-is. The -um/-us suffix is realized before/after velar consonants and/or before u (e.g. lung 'garden' becomes lungum (garden.SG.RCD)). The -im/-is suffix is realized after a palatal consonant or i (e.g. gumi 'plastic' becomes gumiis (plastic.SG.FLAT)).
  • In the case of the two suffixes -ivim (DU.FLAT) and -iving (PL.FLAT), the initial i is often deleted. An example is the root qurlirleng ‘wild sugarcane leaf’, which is realized as qurlirlengvim (wild.sugarcane.leaf.DU.FLAT).