Comitative and instrumental cases (Surgut Khanty)

MixComInstr: Multiple strategies exist to express the comitative and instrumental functions. Although these strategies are regularly used to express both, at least one variant exists that can only be used to express either the comitative or instrumental.


(1) īki rӯt-nat mən-ʌ.

man boat-com go-prs.3sg

’The man is travelling/travels with boat.’


(2) īki īmi-ʌ-nat, īmp-əʌ-nat mən-ʌ.

man wife-3sg-com dog-3sg-com go-prs.3sg

’The man is travelling/travels with his wife and his dog.’


(3) paɣ püksəʌ-nat jantəɣə-ʌ.

boy ball-com play-prs.3sg

’The boy is playing/plays with a ball.’


(4) paɣ jēji-ʌ-nat jantəɣə-ʌ.

boy brother-3sg-com play-prs.3sg

’The boy is playing/plays with his brother.’


(5) īmi ńēwrem-ət qūʌ-at ʌāpət-ʌ.

woman child-pl fish-ins feed-prs.3sg

’The woman is feeding/feeds the children with fish.’


(6) paɣ jēji-ʌ püksəʌ-at mə-ʌ.

boy brother-3sg ball-ins give-prs.3sg

’The boy is giving a ball to his brother (his brother is given a ball).’


The Surgut Khanti -nat suffix can express both the comitative and the instrumental cases (1)–(4). The Instructivus-Finalis -at is used for the coding of the instrumental case (5), and it typically appears in ditransitive clauses (6). It cannot express comitative meaning.

Author: 

Márta Csepregi