Marking of the agent (Synja Khanty)

NPPnonobl: The agent may optionally be marked with an explicit pronoun or noun.

Agr: Morphosyntactic agreement on the verb is used to mark the agent.


(1) ńāń lē-l-ǝm.

I bread eat-prs-1sg

‘I’m eating bread.’ (S. O.)


(2) ńāń lē-l-ǝm.

bread eat-prs-1sg

‘I’m eating bread.’ (S. O.)


(3) ū-s i oxsar. šɔ̄wǝr sijal-s.

live-pst.3sg a fox rabbit notice-pst.3sg

‘There was a fox. He saw a rabbit.’ (S. O.)


In Synja Khanty, the verb agrees with the number and person of the subject (Honti 1984: 93‒96, Rédei 1965: 54‒74, Solovar 2009:  61‒81). In addition, Synja Khanty is a pro-drop language: both nominal and pronominal agents can be dropped.

Author: 

Nikolett F. Gulyás