Hup language

There are nineteen contrasting consonants in Hup, with the twentieth /p’/ occurring in the morpheme-initial position in only one word of only some Hup dialects. /j/, /g/, and /ç/ only appear in morpheme-final position, while all other consonants may appear in morpheme initial, medial, and final position. Hup has glottalized consonants of both stops and approximants which can be seen in the chart below.[7] This language also has nasal allophones of the voiced stops.[7]

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 40.

Hup contains a large segmental phonemic inventory, in comparison to the Tukanoan languages that neighbour it geographically. Hup vowels are composed of nine contrasting sounds, with no occurring diphthongs:[8]

However, these nine sounds occur only in non-nasal contexts. In nasal morphemes, there are only six distinct vowels:

Adapted from Epps (2005)[9]

According to Epps (2005), this indicates that the contrast between mid-vowels and high/low vowels are neutralised in nasal contexts. Nasalisation is morphemic at the syllable level and targets all segments – generally, every syllable is either fully nasal or fully oral.[9]

Hup tonality functions in what is called a word-accent system – there is a word-level tone contrast system; the contrast is restricted to one syllable per word, which is predictable and also exhibits other features of stressed syllables (greater intensity, longer duration, and higher pitch). There are two tones: rising and high, which only appear in nouns and adjectives.

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 138

Some nouns of Hup are semi-verbal, namely those which have to do with the passage of time, as well as periods of time, which are “inherently progressive and impermanent.”[11]

“Passage of time” words:

• wəhə́d "old man"
• wɑ́ "old woman"
• dóʔ "child"

“Periods of time” words:

• wɑ́g "day"
• j'ə́b "night"

While these words belong to the noun class (they typically appear as arguments of a clause, and aspectual inflection is not required), they have verb-like qualities, such as occurrence in verbal compounds (which is normally restricted to only verbs):

The enclitic =wəd, derived from the word for “old man” wəhə́d, can be inserted as a respect marker when referring to spiritual beings or other humans. The feminine form of this is =wa.

This marker is usually used to refer to someone older or of higher status, though it can also be used to indicate someone to be feared, especially when used to refer to dangerous spirits.[12]

The usage of =wəd is also not necessarily respectful. The enclitic can also be affixed to children's names as a sign of affection, comparable to doing the same in English with the titles “Mister” or “Miss”.[13]

Hup is nominative-accusative. All subjects are unmarked, while the object and other noun cases are suffixed. Which suffix is used can depend on number, animacy, type of noun, and grammatical function, as shown in the table below. Case marking extends also to the noun phrase and relative clause, and the suffixes attach to the final constituent of the phrase.

Adapted from Epps (2005), p. 143

Though the object case and directional oblique markers are almost identical phonologically, the only difference being the stress, directional oblique is mainly used to indicate direction, and sometimes, location, in which it coincides with oblique case.

The plurality marker for nouns is =d'əh and follows an animacy hierarchy: humans, animals, and inanimates. For humans, plural marking is obligatory, though exception is made for a non-specific referent.[14]

However, the marker is present for groups of people, which are considered conceptually plural.[15]

Animals are generally also marked for plurality, but differ in that the marker is not obligatory for groups of animals. As with humans, non-specific referents are also not marked.[16]

{{interlinear|indent=3 |núp nutæ̌n yɑʔɑ́m=d'əh hɨd wæd-nɨ́h-ɑy-ɑ́h |this today jaguar=PL 3pl eat-NEG-INCH-DECL |"So today jaguars don’t eat (people)." (Epps (2005), p. 168)

Inanimate objects are not marked for plurality and rely on numerals to indicate such. Plural inanimate entities are regarded with low importance, due to usually having low conceptual salience, and therefore are also almost always unmarked for number in discourse as well.[17]