Tsez (Nakh‑Dagestanian, Tsezic)

The nouns 'child' and 'women' inflect as plurals, but may be used as singulars as well (and show corresponding singular agreement).1

1 Background

1.1 Gender

Tsez has four genders: I (for male humans), II (female humans and some inanimates, III (animals and some inanimates) and IV (the remainder) (Polinsky & Comrie 1999: 110), marked on verbs by the following prefixes:

singular plural
I ̣Ø- b-
II ỵ-
r-
III b-
IV r-

Of significance for the discussion below are the agreement forms for gender III in the singular, and gender I in the singular and plural. Note also that the demonstrative distinguishes singular from plural, and that within the singular, it distinguishes gender I from the others.

singular of gender III
howdu k’et’u b-ik’i-s
this.II/III/IV.ABS cat(III)[SG.ABS] III.SG-go-PST.WIT
'This cat went.'

singular of gender I
plural of gender I
howda uži Ø-ik’i-s howziri uži-bi b-ik’i-s
this.I.ABS boy(I)[SG.ABS] I-go-PST.WIT these.ABS boy(I)-PL.ABS I.PL-go-PST.WIT
'This boy went.' 'These boys went.'
(Comrie 2001: 381-383)

1.2 Case morphology


Tsez has rich case morphology, with six to eight core cases, plus four local cases, as well as further suffies indicating spatial orientation (Comrie and Polinsky (1998)). For illustration, it suffices to show the core cases. What is of particular significance is the regular stem alternation in the plural: the oblique stem augment -z(a)- appears in all cases except the absolutive.

singular plural
ABS besuro besuro-bi
ERG besur-a: besuro-z-a:
DAT besuro-r besuro-za-r
INS besuro-d besuro-za-d
GEN 1 besuro-s besuro-za-s
GEN 2 besuro-z besuro-za-z
(Comrie and Polinsky 1998: 101

2 Deponency in Tsez

The noun xexbi 'child' is morphologically plural: its has an absolutive ending -bi, and its oblique stem is formed with the augment -z(a). Nevertheless, it can be used as a singular, as evidenced by agreement. Two patterns are found, an older one and an innovative one (Comrie 2001: 381-383). In the traditional pattern, the singular is treated as gender III and the plural as gender I:

'child' (gender III)
'children' (gender I)
howdu xex-bi b-ik’i-s howziri xex-bi b-ik’i-s
this.II/III/IV.ABS child-PL.ABS III.SG-go-PST.WIT these.ABS child-PL.ABS I.PL-go-PST.WIT
'This child went.' 'These children went.'

Note that, because of the gender switch between singular and plural, the agreement marker on the verb does not change, since the singular of gender III and plural of gender I both take b-. However, the behaviour of the demonstrative allows one to see the distinction in number. In the more innovative system found with younger speakers, xexbi is treated as gender I in both numbers, so that the number distinction is reflected on the verb as well:

'child' (gender I)
howda xex-bi Ø-ik’i-s
this.I.ABS child-PL.ABS I-go-PST.WIT
'This child went.'

The noun ɣanabi 'woman' behaves similarly.

References

Comrie, Bernard. 2001. How independent is Tsezic morphology? In: Mary Andronis, Christopher Ball, Heidi Elston and Sylvain Neuvel (eds) CLS 37: The Panels: 2001: Proceedings from the Parasessions of the 37th Meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society. Volume 37-2. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society. 367-383.

Comrie, Bernard and Maria Polinsky. 1998. The great Daghestanian case hoax. In: Anna Siewierska, and Jae Jung Song (eds) Case, typology and grammar: in honor of Barry J. Blake. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 95-114.

Corbett, Greville. Forthcoming. Deponency, syncretism and what lies in between. In Matthew Baerman, Greville Corbett, Dunstan Brown and Andrew Hippisley (eds) Deponency and morphological mismatches. Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy.

Notes

1 The material presented here is adapted from Corbett (forthcoming).