Grammatical sketch of Chuvash

Student name: Aida Isteliyeva

Course: LING 375

Table of content

1. Demographic and ethnographic information 3

2. Morphological typology 5
3. Word classes 5
3.1 Nouns 6
3.2 Verbs 6
3.3 Adjectives 8
3.4 Numerals 8
3.5 Adverbs 8
4. Noun and noun-phrase operations 9
5. Constituent order 10
6. Predicate nominals and related constructions. 12
6.1 Predicate nominals and adjectives 12
6.2 Predicate locatives 13
6.3 Existentials and possessives 13
7. Grammatical relations 14
8. Voice and valency change 16
9. Verbs and verb phrases 17
9.1 Nominalization 17
9.2 TAM 18
9.3 Evidentiality, Validationality, Miravity 18
10. Pragmatically marked structures 19
10.1 Pragmatic focus 19
10.2 Negatives 20
10.3 Questions 20
11. Clauses combinations 21
11.1 Serial verbs 21

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 11.2 Complement clauses 21
11.3 Adverbial clauses 22
11.4 Relative clause 23
11.5 Clause coordination 23
Abbreviations 24
Bibliography 25

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1. Demographic and ethnographic information

Chuvash (in Chuvash: Чӑвашла Căvashla [tɕəʋaʃˈla]) is a language primarily spoken in

the Volga region and it is one of the official languages of Chuvashia. The ethnos that speaks the

language call themselves чӑваш Căvash [tɕəˈʋaʃ] and there is no particular version of how this

term came to be that everyone agrees on. The most common theory is that the name comes from

the name of a tribe [suvaz] (Kovalevsky, 1954).

As was mentioned, Chuvash is mostly spoken in Chuvashia (Chuvash Republic) and the

other predominant language in the area is Russian. During the existence of the Soviet Union,

Chuvash was substituted by Russian in all social and legal aspects, making Chuvash a language

that was only spoken at home. Now the government is trying to make Сhuvash regain its status,

placing the two languages on an equal legal footing.

Figure 1.1 Chuvash’s regions of distribution (Savelyev, 2020, p.447)

Chuvash is the only surviving language of the Oghur branch of Turkic languages. Its

closest relatives are the Khazar and Bulgar languages, both of which are extinct (Johanson,

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2020). The very first Chuvash grammar was published in 1769 by Metropolitan bishop

Veniamin. Later, in the 19-20th centuries, ethnographers, linguists and turkologists started to

research the language as well. Nikolai Ashmarin is considered to be the one whose works are the

cornerstone of Chuvash language research. Some of the other researchers of that time include

Ivan Andreev and Johannes Benzing. Besides them, there was also Nikolai Egorov who studied

the origin of the language (Matbek, 2015).

According to Ethnologue (n.d), Chuvash is spoken by 1.6 million people in Russia, and

by 34 thousand people in the rest of the world. Most of the speakers are bilingual with Russian as

their second language. As of now, in schools children can choose either Chuvash or Russian as

the main language of study, either way, they learn both languages. As is common for post-soviet

countries, there is some pressure on the new generation to learn and preserve their mother

tongue, however, Russian is seen as the language of opportunities.

The main languages that influence Chuvash vocabulary are Russian, Tatar, Mongolian

and neighbouring Uralic languages (like Mari), as well as Arabic and Persian due to the spread

of Islam (Matbek, 2015). Borrowings are most common in terminology and mostly come from

Russian (конституци from конституция ‘constitution’, географи from география ‘geography’,

делегат ‘representative, spokesperson’). However, they are also present in the names of

everyday items like пальто ‘coat’ and пӗрене from Russian бревно ‘log.’

Chuvash has two main dialects called Viryal or Upper and Anatri or Lower (Institute of

Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences, 2005). Their difference is that in Anatri people use

/u/ for both /o/ and /u/, while in Viryal /o/ and /u/ are separate phonemes. The literary Chuvash

language used in this sketch is based on a mix of both dialects.

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2. Morphological typology

Just like most if not all Turkic languages, Chuvash is a synthetic, agglutinating language.

This can be seen from the example below.

(1) esə či-mes-t-ə̂ n-im

2SG eat-NEG-PRS-2SG-ITRG
‘Aren’t you eating?’ (Ashmarin, 1929-1930)
As we can see from the verb in (1), words of the language can have several morphemes, making

the language a synthetic one. Besides that, most of the morphemes encode a singular

grammatical meaning, which proves that Chuvash is an agglutinating language. It also should be

mentioned that Chuvash is a predominantly suffixal language. There are instances of prefixes in

Chuvash, however, they are unproductive and believed to be borrowed from Russian: ни-кам

from Russian никто ‘no one’, ни-мён from ничто ‘nothing’ (Ashmarin, 1929-1930).

Judging by genitive constructions, such as in (2), we can conclude that the language

marks both the head and the dependent. There are instances when marking is only on the head,

however, those cases are considered to be instances of word formation (Savelyev, 2020).

(2) laša-n xür-i

horse-GEN tail-POSS.3
‘Horse’s tail’ (Savelyev, 2020)

3. Word classes

In Chuvash, there are many cases in which the same lexeme can be a part of two different

word classes: a noun and an adjective, or a noun and a verb (Ashmarin, 1929-1930). For

example, čуркунне can mean both ‘spring’ as a noun or as an adverb. Similarly, тура can mean

both ‘a comb’ and ‘to comb’. This differentiates Chuvash from other Turkic languages and

makes it difficult to judge whether a word class is open or closed.

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3.1 Nouns

Nouns are considered to be an open word class. Nouns can be used as subjects and

objects, heads of noun phrases and topics. They can be marked for number, case and possession

and the usual order of morphemes is possession-number-case:

(3) kəneke-m-sem-pe
book-POSS.1-PL-INS
‘with my books’ (Ashmarin, 1929-1930)

Nouns sometimes can be marked for comparative and superlative form using suffixes that

usually mark adjectives: вăрманарах ‘closer to forest’ with a root вăрман meaning ‘forest’ and

suffix -арах -arax which marks comparative form (Ashmarin, 1929-1930). There are other

instances of such use and in most of them, comparative form suffix signifies close spatial

position.

There are no particular classes of nouns that can be observed besides the proper VS

common nouns. The main difference between the two is that for common nouns modifiers

precede the head noun, but in the case of common nouns modifiers sometimes go after the head

noun. For example, to say king Almus we would use Almuš patša where patša is the modifier.

3.2 Verbs

Verbs in Chuvash can play a role of a head in a verb phrase and be a predicate of a

clause. They can take on markers of tense and mood, person and number that signifies the

subject, as well as negation. Besides that, in Chuvash verbs can be marked for potential of the

action to happen. The order of the markers is potential form - negation - mood (tense) -person

and number and is shown in (4) below.

(4) nimən te kur-ay-ma-r-ə̂

nothing PTCL see-POT-NEG-PST-1SG
‘I was not able to see anything’

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 Verbs in Chuvash can be marked for five moods: indicative, conditional, imperative,

concessive and optative. Out of them, only one can be marked for tense: indicative. Table 3.2.1

shows the whole range of tenses present for the indicative mood as well as their suffixes.

Table 3.2.1 Tense markers in indicative case

Tense Markers
Present -at, -et
Future -ə̂ , -ə
Simple Past/Categorical -t, -r, -č (for third person only)
Indefinite Past -nə̂ , -nə
Imperfect -att, -ett
Perfect -satt, -sett

The imperative mood is the only mood that uses a special set of person/number markers

that encode all three: imperative mood, number and person (Table 3.2.2).

Table 3.2.2 Imperative mood markers

Number Singular Plural

Person
1 -am, -em -ar, -er
2 -∅ -ə̂ r, -ər
3 -tə̂ r, -tər -ččə̂ r, -ččər

Besides imperatives, all four other moods use the same set of person/number markers

which are separate from the mood marker and come after it. The conditional mood is marked by

the suffixes -ə̂ tt/-ətt. The concessive mood is marked by a suffix -in and the optative mood is

marked by a clitic -(č)čə that can only be added after the concessive suffix.

All of the operations that concern grammatical meaning are productive and can be

applied to all verbs.

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3.3 Adjectives

Chuvash adjectives are quite hard to distinguish from nouns, as nouns can be used to

modify the head noun as well as take on a comparative suffix. However, they are the only word

class that can take on superlative form through partial reduplication (Ashmarin, 1929-1930): the

first few sounds of an adjective, up to the first vowel, are said with an addition of /p/ at the end

before the adjective itself. This is a productive construction in most Turkic languages and can be

exemplified by šụp-šụlə ‘the most beautiful.’ Another way to distinguish adjectives is if they are

formed from other word classes through suffixes like -lə̂ x, -çan, -ə̂ k. Besides that, adjectives do

not seem to take on such markings like number, person or possessives and do not formally show

agreement with head nouns they modify.

3.4 Numerals

In Chuvash numerals come in three different forms however there does not seem to be a

particular rule on the different uses of the three. As an example ikkə, ikə, and ik all mean ‘two’

(Ashmarin, 1929-1930). Ordinal numbers are created through suffixes -ə̂ m/-əm. Without

referring to other languages it is possible to count in Chuvash up to a million at which point we

get to a borrowed word million. On their own, if used as arguments, numerals can be marked for

person and case, however, if used as modifiers of a noun they do not take on any markers and do

not overtly agree with the head noun.

3.5 Adverbs

In Chuvash, most adverbs are identical to adjectives. Those that cannot also be used as

adjectives are adverbs that are derived from nouns and adjectives. The derivation is done through

suffixes -lla/-la/-lle/-le and -ə̂ n/-ən. The last set of allomorphs was used to mark instrumental

case which was fossilized.

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4. Noun and noun-phrase operations

Chuvash has simple and compound nouns. There are several ways to create compounds:

they can be created from two nouns (through the possessive structure), from a verb and a noun

and a particle and a noun. These processes are relatively productive and common in the language

as many even simple concepts are expressed or specified through a compound. Compounds are

relatively easy to recognize by their form through suffixes used to create the compound. As was

already mentioned in part 3, all verbs, adverbs and adjectives can be derived from nouns through

derivational suffixes. It also needs to be mentioned that sometimes nouns can be used as another

word-class without formal change.

Nouns can be marked for singular (zero-marking) and plural (-sen/-sem suffixes)

numbers. Number marking is not limited and can be applied to all nouns in Chuvash.

Chuvash has a complex system of cases, with some of them becoming unproductive with

time. Sometimes the case is marked by postpositions but mostly it is done through suffixation.

The currently productive standard case system consists of eight cases: nominative, genitive,

dative-accusative, locative, ablative, instrumental-comitative, caritive, and causal-final. Table 4.1

below shows the possible case markers.

Table 4.1 Grammatical case

Case Marker Example (Savelyev, 2020)

Nominative -ø (zero-marker) yat ‘name’
Genitive (-V)-n, (-C)-ə̂ n/-ən yat-ə̂ n ‘name’s’
Dative/Accusative (-V)-na/-ne, (-C)-a/-e yat-a ‘for name’
Locative (-V or -C)-ra/-re, (-R)-ta/-te yat-ra ‘in name’
Ablative (-V or -C)-ran/-ren, (-R)-tan/-ten yat-ran ‘from name’
Instrumental/comitative -pa/-pe yat-pa ‘with name’

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Case Marker Example (Savelyev, 2020)
Caritive -sə̂ r/-sər yat-sə̂ r ‘without name’
Causative/Final -šə̂ n/-šən yat-sə̂ n ‘for name’

Allomorphs of case markers in Chuvash depend on the last sound of the stem and the

vowels in the word (front/back harmony). In this table, the letters in brackets signify the last

sound of the stem: -C for consonant, -V for vowel, and -R for trills and laterals.

In a noun phrase, possessors precede the head noun and take on the genitive case marker.

The possessee can be marked by possessive suffix or left unmarked.

Chuvash, like most Turkic languages, does not have grammatical gender. As for noun

classes, Chuvash grammar can behave somewhat differently with proper nouns as opposed to

common nouns, as was explained in 3.1. Besides that, there is a difference between people and

all of the other animate and inanimate objects which can mostly be found in predicate locatives

(see 6.2).

Chuvash has several affixes that show diminutive meaning such as -çə̂ /-çə (pə̂ rtakçə̂ ‘just

a little bit’), -ka, -uk, -kaj. It needs to be mentioned that the last three seem to be borrowed from

Russian as that language has similar diminutive markers. Chuvash does not seem to have

augmentatives that are expressed through morphology.

5. Constituent order

The neutral constituent order of Chuvash is Subject-Object-Verb however it is not the

only possible variant. In Chuvash, like in Kazakh and other Turkic languages, the pragmatic

focus of the sentence is the constituent that comes before the verb phrase. Because of that, when

the subject is the focus, the order changes to Object-Subject-Verb. Another common version of

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the order is Object-Verb-Subject and it happens when the pronoun that acts as the subject is

cliticised. Other orders are also possible but limited in use to literature and speech.

As Subject-Object-Verb is the neutral order Agent-Patient-Verb is the order of a natural

setting. However, it too can change if the Agent is the focus of the sentence. In that case, the

order becomes Patient-Agent-Verb.

Auxiliaries are not that common in Chuvash as it is more of a modern analytic

construction that is replacing the synthetic one. The auxiliary verb pul is used in the construction

of verbs in past perfect tense. It comes after the semantic verb and both of them take on markings

of past participle. Besides that this auxiliary is commonly used in predicates (see part 6).

(5) pəčək Atner škul-a vəoren-me ulttə̂ -r-ax kay-nə̂ pul-nə̂

little PERN school-DAT/ACC study-INF six-LOC-EMPH go-PST.PTCP be-PST.PTCP
‘Little Atner started school when he was as young as six years old.’ (Savelyev, 2020)

Unlike auxiliaries, but similar to adjectives in noun phrases, adverbs come before the

semantic verb.

In Chuvash head nouns come at the end of a noun phrase, so all modifiers precede the

main noun. Among modifiers, there is also a particular order which can be schematised this way:

case-marked nominal modifier—demonstrative—relative clause—quantifier—classifying

adjective—qualitative adjective (Savelyev, 2020).

Just like most Turkic languages, Chuvash has postpositions (6). There were also instances

of borrowed Russian prepositions in Chuvash, however, as of now, they became prefixes as

explained in part 2. Postpositions are most frequently formed from nouns; there are instances of

postpositions forming from verbs and adverbs but they are much rarer (Ashmarin, 1929-1930).

An example of a postposition formed from a noun would be ajne ‘under’ from a noun aj

‘bottom’, valli ‘for’ from noun val’ə̂ ‘share/portion.’

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(6) vəol fil’m čint͡ ʃen kala-n-ə̂
3SG film POSTP to.talk-PST-3SG
‘She talked about a film’

Chuvash has a grammaticalized comparative construction, which can be seen from

example (7). The subject of comparison is in the nominative case, while the object it is compared

to takes on an ablative case marker. Besides that, the word that signifies the criteria of

comparison is marked with a comparative suffix -rax/-arax.

(7) ku kəneke-Ø leʃ kəneke-ren xaklə̂ -rax

DEM book-NOM DEM book-ABL expensive-CMPR
‘This book is more expensive than that one’

Yes/no questions have structures of declarative sentences with an addition of a clitic after

the predicate. Depending on the variety of Chuvash and the specifics of the question Chuvash

can either utilize =i, =ə, =ši or =im. There is not a stable place for all question words in

Chuvash: the place depends on what the question asks for and whether the answering constituent

will be a pragmatic focus. In case the sentence is neutral, the place of the question would be the

same as the place of the constituent who answers it in a declarative sentence.

6. Predicate nominals and related constructions.

6.1 Predicate nominals and adjectives

In Chuvash, predicate nominals are created differently depending on the tense. In the

present tense (8), predicate nominals do not have any auxiliary or copula verbs: the construction

is Subject-Predicate noun. In the past (9) and the future (10) tenses, there is an additional copula

verb pul that marks the tense, as well as the person and number. The predicate itself does not

have markings of agreement with the subject. The same construction is also applied to predicate

adjectives.

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(8) vəol xitre
3SG handsome
‘He is handsome’

(9) vəol xitre pul-n-əo

3SG handsome be-PST-3SG
‘He was handsome’

(10) vəol xitre pul-ə̂ -t’

3SG handsome be-FUT-3SG
‘He will be handsome’

6.2 Predicate locatives

Predicate locatives in Chuvash have a relatively complex system in that it is different

depending on the subject. If the subject is a person (11), predicate locative behaves in the same

way as predicate nominals - depending on the tense - with a detail that the noun that signifies the

location is marked by locative case. If the subject is an animal or an inanimate object and we are

talking about the present tense (12), then we also add a converb at the end of the clause: either

tar ‘stand’ or lar ‘sit.’ In case of a different tense (13), the predicate locative construction for

inanimate objects is the same as for people.

(11) tuxtə̂ or çkul-ta

doctor school-LOC
‘Doctor is at school’

(12) və̂ ol çkul-ta pul-a-t’

3SG school-LOC be-FUT-3SG
‘He will be at school’

(13) sətel pụləm-re lar-a-t’

table room-LOC sit.CVB-FUT-3SG
‘Table is in a room’

6.3 Existentials and possessives

In the present tense, both existential and possessive (14) constructions use auxiliary

verbs: affirmative pur and negative śuk both of which are not marked by either number or

13
person. In other tenses (15), they use a construction similar to that of predicate nominals by

utilizing the converb pul which is marked by tense, person, number.

While the structure of existential constructions is quite simple: Subject-Predicate,

possessives are a bit more complex as the structure includes the possessor and the possessee. The

complexity is that it encodes the longevity of possession. In a clause where the possessee is in an

eternal, constant possession, the possessor is marked with the genitive case. In case the

possession is temporary, the possessor is marked with the locative case. The possessee can be

either marked by a possessive suffix or not (Ashmarin, 1903), however, the rules are out of the

scope of this paper.

(14) un-ə̂ n kəneke pur

3SG-GEN book ANP

‘He has a book’

(15) un-ə̂ n kəneke pul-n-əo

3SG-GEN book be-PST-3SG
‘He had a book’

7. Grammatical relations

In Chuvash in an intransitive clause (16) we see that the subject of the sentence has a

zero-marking of nominative case. In a transitive clause (17) we see that the agent və̂ ol is also

marked with a nominative case, while the patient is marked with an accusative case. Therefore

we can conclude that this language has a nominative-accusative system of grammatical relations.

(16) epir čïvə̂ r-at-pə̂ r

1PL.DIR sleep-PRS-1PL
‘We sleep’
(17) və̂ ol vazə̂ o-na čəmərnə
3SG vase-ACC break-PST-3SG
‘He broke a vase’

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 The case with ditransitive verbs is however harder to make conclusions on. (18) provides

an example of the usual ditransitive verb ‘give’ and (19) with the verb ‘tell’. However in

Chuvash, these verbs do not seem to be ditransitive as the recipient of the action - when

expressed through a pronoun - comes in its oblique-object form, meaning that the recipient is not

a core argument of the verb and the verb is transitive. Besides that from the examples we can

note that the direct objects parne and istori are not overtly marked by any grammatical case.

From these, we can infer that among direct objects only patients are marked by the accusative

case, while other semantic roles that can become direct objects - like the theme - are marked by

nominative case. From (16), (17) and (20) we can also see that the GR system does not depend

on the tense of the clause.

(18) və̂ ol man-a parne par-ə

3SG 1SG.OBL-DAT gift give-FUT
‘She will give me a present’
(19) və̂ ol vəosen-e istori kala-sa par-a-t’
3SG 3PL.OBL-DAT story say-CVB CVB-FUT-3SG
‘She will tell them a story’
From (18) and (19) we can also see that the indirect objects mana and vəosene are marked

by the dative case. Example (20) also shows that oblique arguments like instruments, location

and source are marked by the relevant case: instrumental, locative, ablative.

(20) ʎaʃka-na kaʃə̂ ok-pa pə̂ otr-a-tə

soup-ACC spoon-INS mix-FUT-3SG
‘He will mix the soup with a spoon’
Overall we see the grammatical relation of arguments through grammatical case marking

as shown above. Besides that from (16) and (17), we can see that both - the agent and the subject

- are marked on the verb through the person/number marker. The same similarity between S and

A can also be seen from the word order in the clause: both of them are placed at the beginning of

the clause.
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 Chuvash does not seem to have split-intransitivity, at least not from any of the examples I

managed to find or generate. The grammatical relation system also does not depend on whether

the clause is affirmative or negative (21) or if it is main or dependent.

(21) uˈt͡ ʃ’it’el’ vazə̂ o-na čəmər-mes-t

teacher vase-ACC break-NEG-3SG
‘The teacher will not break the vase’
Pronouns generally behave the same way noun phrases do. The only differences are

demonstrated in (18) and (20). (18) shows us that, unlike noun phrases, pronouns have a direct

and oblique object form: there is no marker for nouns that would signify it being an oblique

argument. (20) shows us that a pronoun that is the subject or the agent can be dropped from the

clause as it is already marked on the verb through the person/number suffix.

8. Voice and valency change

Chuvash has several operations that change the valency of a verb, one of them being the

formation of causatives. Causatives are formed by adding suffixes -tar/-ter/-t/-ttar/-tter to the

root of the verb. One example of a causative can be vĕrent ‘to cause to study/to teach’ where

vĕren means ‘to study’ and -t is a causative marker. Causative affixes do not serve any other

grammatical function however we can find instances of their homonyms marking TAM.

It is hard to judge whether there are any valency changing operations that make oblique

arguments into core ones on the scale of our work. However, as it is difficult to even infer

whether Chuvash has ditransitive verbs I am inclined to think that there are no such operations.

Dative-shift is also not something that can be found in Chuvash.

Reflexives and reciprocals in Chuvash are marked through suffixes which are different in

form. Reflexives are marked by suffixes -ĕn/-ăn/-n/-ĕl/-ăl and an example of a reflexive can be

16
śăvan ‘to wash (oneself)’ where śăva is ‘to wash’ and -n markes reflexivity. Reciprocals are

marked by suffixes -ĕś/-ăś/-ś/-š/-ĕš/-ăš example of which can be seen from pulăš ‘to help each

other’ where pul is ‘to help’ and -ăš is the marker of reciprocation.

Chuvash has morphological passive constructions and it is expressed through suffixes -l/-

n on the verb. An example of passive can be seen from (22). This construction can also be used

to express automotive function (Savelyev, 2020). Such clauses may include some oblique

arguments like instrument or location along with direct objects however the agent is always

excluded.

(22) kalav śə̂ omə̂ ol vula-n-a-t́

short.story easily read-PASS-PRS-3SG
‘The short story is read with ease’ (Savelyev, 2020, p.461)
Overall none of the operations named above have any other functions than those

mentioned.

9. Verbs and verb phrases

9.1 Nominalization

Chuvash has several ways in which it can form nouns out of verbs, all of which are

expressed through suffixation of some kind. The first type is the names of the action derived

from the verb. In Chuvash such a process is accomplished through a suffix -u. An example of

such can be t͡ ʃupu ‘a run’ derived from t͡ ʃup ‘to run’.

Another one is agent nominalization. In Chuvash it is mostly common that names for

‘doers’ of the action come from names of instruments or products of the action rather than the

verb. However there are instances where nouns for agents come from verbs and in those cases it

is done through suffix -măś/-mĕś: tuxat ‘to conjure’ gets nominalized into a ‘conjurer/wizard’

17
with suffix -măś - tuxatmăś (Ashmarin, 1929-1930, p.24). The same suffix however can also be

used to create nouns that name the product of the action rather than the doer: toltar ‘to fill’

toltarmăś ‘sausage’.

Besides that, agent nominalization can also be achieved through suffixes -kăn/-kĕn such

as in tarkăn ‘the one who flees’. Patient nominalization is possible and is connected with this

suffix as well, however here -kăn/-kĕn is added to a verb in passive voice: siplenekĕn ‘the one

who is being healed’ from siple to heal and -en marking passive voice.

Chuvash has many other ways in which it can create nouns out of verbs - in most of them

the noun created is either a product, an instrument or a location of the action (Ashmarin, 1929-

1930, pp.23-24):

(a) -ă/-ĕ and -ăk/-ĕk used to derive products of an action: katăk ‘part’ from kat ‘break, chop’;

(b) -t͡ ʃăk/-t͡ ʃĕk and -kăt͡ ʃ/-kĕt͡ ʃ used to derive nouns naming instruments, locations of actions

and more rarely agents: ăskăt͡ ʃ ‘scooper’ from ăs ‘to scoop’;

(c) -kă/-kĕ to derive products and things essential for the action: ĕčkĕ ‘a drink’ from ĕč ‘to

drink’.

9.2 TAM

I have already covered TAM markers in Chuvash verbs in part 3.2 Verbs. The only thing

I would like to add is that the case system is not influenced by TAM of the clause.

9.3 Evidentiality, Validationality, Miravity

Constructions showing evidentiality in Chuvash are present and the marking is done in an

analytic way through indirective copulas imeš (23) and ikken (24) (Johanson, 2003, p.280). The

two copulas show whether the speaker has evidence for the uttered statement: imeš is used with

18
utterances which the speaker heard from somewhere but does not have evidence for; ikken is

used in cases where the speaker is assured in the truth of a statement through evidence.

(23) kil-nĕ imeš

come-INDP IC
‘Has reportedly arrived’ (Johanson, 2003, p.280)
(24) kil-nĕ ikken
come-INDP IC
‘Has evidently arrived’ (Johanson, 2003, p.280)
Validationality and miravity do not seem to be present or productive in Chuvash however

one of the referenced articles states that there is an interrogative mirative clitic =im (Savelyev,

2020). However, the article provides no further examples of its use and I was unable to find any

texts with its use so I cannot say for certain if it is present in the language or not.

10. Pragmatically marked structures

10.1 Pragmatic focus

Not counting the possible mishaps in a sudden speech where the speaker can accidentally

change the order of constituents, Chuvash has only one type of instance in which the regular

word order is changed: the word order changes if there is a pragmatic focus. In Chuvash if a

clause has a focus - the most informative or important part of the utterance - then no matter

which constituent it is, it takes on the clause-initial position (25). This way the language

accomplishes putting the most emphasis on the important part of the sentence.

(25) ʃaxtar sikr-em xăra-sa

flinch flinch-IMP.1SG be.afraid-CVB
‘I was scared so much - I flinched’ (Ashmarin, 1929-1930, p.80)
In example (25), we see that the subject is dropped as it is already marked on the verb.

The correct version of the clause would be the converb before the main verb, however, as in the

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sentence, the main information is that the speaker flinched, not that they were scared, the

constituent that states the focus comes at the beginning of the sentence.

10.2 Negatives

Clausal negation is mostly done through a negative suffix -ma/-me on the main verb of

the clause for all tenses and moods and -mas/-mes (21) for present and imperfect tenses. There

are also several other ways in which we can express negation. One of them is the negative

nominal predicate śuk used for existentials mentioned in 6.3. Another one is through the use of a

caritive case marker (26) which expresses the meaning of ‘without (noun)’.

(26) ĕčkĕ-sĕr
drink-CAR
‘without drinking’
Another way in which we can negate constituents is through a negative derivational affix

-ni but it can only be added to interrogative pronouns: nikam ‘nobody’ from kam ‘who’. Other

than that we can also find a particle mar used to negate constituents. It can be found to negate

noun phrases like in (27). Besides that, we can also find mar being used in the negative

imperative constructions.

(27) ăslă čïn mar

smart man NEG
‘Not a smart man’

10.3 Questions

Yes/no questions are formed by adding clitics =i/=a/=e to the clause-final verb of an

affirmative sentence as shown in (28). If the clitic was absent from the example, the translation

of that declarative sentence would be ‘you went swimming’.

(28) es šïv-a kə-me kay-r-ə̂ n=a

2SG water-DAT/ACC enter-INF go-PST-2SG=Q
‘Did you go swimming?’ (Ashmarin, 1929-1930)

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 Content questions are formed using interrogative pronouns like kam ‘who’, xăčan

‘when’, ăčta ‘where’ and so on. In a question (29), they are usually placed in the place where the

answering constituent is going to be in a declarative clause (30). The order is sometimes changed

due to pragmatic focus or topic - as was described in 10.1 - which shifts question word from the

possible clause-initial position to the middle. Other than that the word order is quite stable.

(29) anne ăčta kaʎ-a-t’

mother Q go-FUT-3SG
‘Where will mother go?’
(30) anne magazin-a kaʎ-a-t’
mother store-DAT/ACC go-FUT-3SG
‘Mother will go to the store’

11. Clauses combinations

11.1 Serial verbs

As seen from examples (5), (19) and (25) Chuvash has a tendency to create serial verbs:

some of them are used to create more complex lexical meanings, some are used to create an array

of grammatical constructions. The most common verbs to appear in serial constructions are basic

verbs that mean ‘to be’, ‘to go’ and ‘to say’ none of which seem to be losing their semantic

content as all of them could still be used on their own. Besides them, there are also a couple of

auxiliary verbs discussed in 6.3. Technically they can form serial verb constructions however

they already do not have semantic meaning on their own besides affirming or negating a clause.

11.2 Complement clauses

In chuvash it is possible to create complement clauses where the subordinate clause can

take the place of subject (31), object (32), oblique arguments, as well as predicates in noun and

adjective predicates. In all of those cases the construction is achieved through making a

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participle out of the verb predicate of the subordinate clause and further nominalizing it into an

action name with a -i suffix. There are a number of suffixes that can signify a participle: -nə̂ /-nə

for past tense; -akan/-eken for present tense; -as for future tense and necessitive participle marker

-malla. In cases where the complement clause takes on the role of verb’s argument the

subordinate clause is placed in the beginning of the sentence, however, it is possible that a simple

subject is placed in the beginning if it is more progmatically important. In the case where the

subordinate clause takes on the role of a predicate its position once again depends on the

pragmatic focus, so it can take any position in the sentence.

(31) epĕ šaχmat kruʒok-pe kĕ-n-i yultaš-sen-e pitĕ

1SG chess club-COM join-PTCP-DER member-PL-DAT very

xĕpĕrtetter-č-ĕ
delight-PST-3
‘My joining the chess club greatly heartened the members’ (Krueger, 1961, p.187)
(32) ača-sem ekskursiy-e kay-ni-ne epĕ pĕl-et-ĕp
child-PL excursion-DAT go-INDP-PTCP 1SG know-PRS-1SG
‘I know the children’s having gone on excursion’ (Krueger, 1961, p.188)

11.3 Adverbial clauses

In Chuvash it is possible to form adverbial clauses of time, purpose, reason, manner,

condition and concession. Similarly to complement clauses, some of them are formed through

nominalized participles. Another way to create an adverbial clause is through converbs. The

subordinate clause usually takes on the place between core arguments and the verb but due to

pragmatic focus it can be shifted to the sentence-initial position. One example of an adverbial

clause of reason can be seen in (33) below. As we can see, the subordinate construction is once

again created through the nominalization of a participle.

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(33) ep mən-šən kil-n-i-pe čuxlan kə̂ štax
1SG Q-CAUS/FIN come-PST.PTCP-NMLZ-INS/COM think a.bit
‘Think for a bit about why I came here.’ (Savelyev, 2020)

11.4 Relative clause

Relative clause is once again formed through a participle construction (34); however this

time it is not nominalized, as it was in the two previous clause types. In Chuvash relative clause

takes on the prenominal slot and can be applied to all possible noun phrases: from subjects to

possessors. One of the problems of the relative clause in Chuvash is that in some constructions

the participle does not hold any person/number marking which leads to ambiguity (Savelyev,

2020)

(34) epir χula-na kay-akan avtobus kil-č-ĕ

1PL.DIR town-DAT take-PTCP bus arrive-PST-3SG
‘The bus that would take us to town arrived’ (Krueger, 1961, p.187)

11.5 Clause coordination

11.5.1 Conjunction

There are two ways in which we can conjunct two clauses: the first is through a converb

marker on the first clause (35); the second is through a conjunction (36).

(35) anne magazin-a kay-sa čĕnĕ kĕpe tuyan-ma kay-a-t’

mother store-DAT go-CVB new dress acquire-CVB go-FUT-3SG
‘Mother will go to a store and buy a new dress’
(36) tuχtăr ʎïʃănăva pĕter-t͡ ʃ-ĕ te pat͡ sient tuχ-r-ĕ
doctor appointment stop-PST-3SG CONJ patient exit-PST-3SG
‘Doctor finished the appointment and the patient left’
11.5.2 Disjunction

Similarly to conjunctions, the main way to disjunct two clauses is through disjunctive

conjunction words (37).

(37) vəol xănam-a kay-nə̂ e ʃkul-a kay-nə̂

3SG guest-DAT go-PST CONJ school-DAT go-PST

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‘He either went to visit (someone as a guest) or he went to school’

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Abbreviations

1 - first person INDP - indefinite past

2 - second person INF - infinitive

3 - third person INS - instrumental

ABL - ablative ITRG - interrogative

ACC - accusative LOC - locative

ANP - affirmative nominal predicate NEG - negation

DEM - demonstrative pronouns NOM - nominative

DER - derivative suffix OBL - oblique object

DIR - direct object PASS - passive

FIN - final PERN - personal name

CAR - caritive PL - plural

CAUS - causal POSS - possessive

CMPR - comparative POSTP - postposition

COM - comitative PPR - possessive pronoun

CONJ - conjunction POT -potential suffix

CVB - converb PRS - present

DAT - dative PST - past tense

EMPH - emphatic PTCL - particle

GEN - genitive PTCP - participle

IC - indirective copula SG - singular

IMP - imperative Q - question

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