Language/Classical-quechua/Grammar/Gramatical-generalities

GRAMATICAL GENERALITIES OF QUECHUA

Typology

- Quechua belongs to the group of agglutinating languages ​​in which a root can be followed by one or more suffixes

            Rumi                            Piedra                                        Stone                          

Rumiwan                       Con la piedra                              With the Stone                                     

Rumi-lla-wan                 Sólo con la piedra                      Onlv with the Stone                  

Rumi-lla-wan-raq           Sólo con la piedra todavía          Only with the stone yet 

In this way a series of sentences can be formed with any root. In some cases the suffix chu indicates the interrogative form

Takinkichu                    Vas a cantar?                            Will you sing?               

Riymanchu                    Puedo ir?                                  Shall i go?       

The suffix wan equals to,

Mamaywan                   Con mi madre                            With my mother

The suffix lla equals to,

Ñoqalla                         Solamente yo                            Only me

GRAMMATIC UNITS

Morfema

- It is the minimum unit of speech with its own meaning.

In Quechua there are two kinds of morphemes: free and linked. Free are those that constitute words by themselves with a specific meaning, eg:

Uma                             Cabeza                                    Head

Morpheme linked is the one that never appears only but linked to another morpheme to have meaning:

Uma-sapa                     Cabezón                                  Big-headed      

As you can see, the sapa particle has no meaning if it is not linked to another morpheme, which does not happen with one that can appear alone. These linked morphemes are called suffixes. In a Quechua sentence there may be three or more suffixes linked to free morpheme ej

Wawa                           Criatura                                    Babv               

Wawa-kuna-man            A las criaturas .                         To the babies               

Wawa-kuna-man-raq     A las criaturas, primero             To the babies first

Root

- It is called like this some morphemes that do not carry suffixes. They are more numerous and have, in general, a greater number of phonemes, eg:

Paya                             Vieja                                         Old woman                                           

Mallki                            Arbol                                        Tree     

Topic

- It is a root stripped of inflectional suffixes or bearing derivation suffixes, as in the case of Quechua, ex:

Mihuy                           Comer                                     To eat  

            Mihuna                         Comida                                    Food   

            Qhaway                       Mirar                                         To look

            Qhawana                     Mirador                                    Watch-tower     

Word

- It is the morpheme that can be used independently. In Quechua it can consist of a simple root, ex:

Karu                             Lejos                                        Far      

            Wayna                         Joven                                       Young man      

Or also in a root with derivative and inflectional suffixes. ex:

Karumanta hamuni        Vengo de lejos                         I come from far off

Prayer

- Prayer is a syntactically independent unit. It is simple when it has only one verb, eg: It is said that the sentence is composed when it has more than one verb, ex:

Ñañay takiyta munan     Mi hermana quiere cantar          My sister wants to sing