Morphosyntactic alignment of pronouns (P) (Surgut Khanty)

Nom: Two categories are distinguished from a morphosyntactic perspective: 1. [Sa, Snona, Aa and Anona]; 2. [P]. This type is known as nominative or nominative–accusative.


(1) āj äwi pəʌ-ʌ.

little girl fear-prs.3sg

‘The little girl is afraid.’


(2) āj äwi ɔ̄məs-ʌ.

little girl sit-prs.3sg

‘The little girl is sitting.’


(3) āj äwi mān-t ojaɣtə-ɣ.

little girl I-acc notice-pst.3sg

‘The little girl noticed me.’


(4) īki ʌüw-at kənč-əʌ.

man (s)he-acc look_for-prs.3sg

‘The man is looking for him/her.’


(5) īki əj mətʌi kənč-əʌ.

man one something look_for-prs.3sg

‘The man is looking for something.’


In Surgut Khanty, the nominal subject/agent of both intransitive (1)–(2) and transitive (3)–(4) verbs is marked with the nominative case. Personal pronominal patients of transitive clauses are in their accusative forms (3), (4), while other pronouns do not have distinct accusative forms (5). The word order and the context can differentiate between subject and object functions.

Author: 

Márta Csepregi