History and dialect classification
South Bolivian Quechua is a member of the Southern branch of theLanguage status
Quechua is recognized as an official language of Bolivia, one of the 36 indigenous languages declared official in the nation's constitution. South Bolivian Quechua has a large number of speakers compared to other indigenous languages. However, Quechua is still in danger of devaluing and encroachment from the prestige language Spanish.Coronel-Molina, Serafin MPhonology
Vowels
South Bolivian Quechua has three basic vowel sounds: unrounded front vowel /i/, rounded back vowel /u/, and low central vowel /a/. The front vowel /i/ is lowered to or �when next to a uvular stop or when separated from a uvular stop only by a non-stop consonant. The back vowel /u/ is similarly lowered in this environment, to or �Consonants
The following table displays the consonant sounds in South Bolivian Quechua using the orthographic system employed by Bills (1969).Bills, Garland D., Bernardo Vallejo C., and Rudolph C. Troike. ''An Introduction to Spoken Bolivian Quechua.'' Austin: U of Texas P, 1969. Print. IPA equivalents are included in brackets where necessary. There are four stops and one affricate /ch/ in the basic sound system. The five sounds contrast with both their aspirated and glottalized versions, a characteristic that occurs in many dialects of the Quechua language family and is believed to be as a result of exposure to Aymara, which makes the same distinctions. Aspiration and glottalization can be seen to be contrastive in minimal pairs such as ''puñun'' "he sleeps" versus ''p'uñun'' "his jug", and ''piña'' "pineapple" versus ''p"iña'' "wild". All stops, affricates, and fricatives are voiceless with the exception of /q/, which becomes a voiced uvular fricative �syllable-initially. Additional phonological alternations include fricativization of /k/ and /q/ syllable-finally, to velar and uvular �respectively. The fricative /s/ has allophones and � of which the latter occurs quite infrequently. All fricatives occur only word-initially and medially, never finally. The three nasal sounds assimilate to the point of articulation of the following consonant sound. Word-finally, /n/ is the only nasal that occurs; it becomes �Syllable structure
South Bolivian Quechua generally has a simple CV(C) syllable structure, where the coda consonant is optional. The onset consonant is also optional word-initially, as in the words ''ima'' "what" and ''uk'' "one", and Spanish borrowings can contain word-initial consonant clusters of the form CCV(C), as in ''bwenos diyas'' "good morning". No more than two consonants are allowed in a consonant cluster. Proto-Quechua has few constraints on the combinations of consonant clusters allowed, but due to consonant lenition syllable-finally, there are greater restrictions on the types of consonant clusters that occur in South Bolivian Quechua. Some of the possible consonant clusters can be seen in the following examples: * ''čilwi'' "chick, baby chicken" * ''p'isqu'' "bird" * ''qan munanki'' "you want it" * ''kayqa'' "this" * ''waliqlla rirquy'' "may you go well"Stress
Primary stress generally occurs on the penultimate syllable of the word, with secondary stresses on alternating syllables. This can be seen in the following analyses for the words ''munankičis'' and ''munankičisñaču'' (root verb ''muna'' "want, desire"), where stress has been numbered below: Rare exceptions exist where the final syllable of the word carries the primary stress, such as in ''ari'' "yes". There also exist some 'emotive' suffixes in the language that are always stressed, resulting in stress on the last syllable of the word. Stress on the final syllable can also occur through the dropping of some single-syllable suffixes (for instance, the yes/no question marker ''-chu'') without a subsequent shifting of the stress.Morphology
South Bolivian Quechua is an agglutinative, polysynthetic language with a rich derivational morphology, allowing the language to convey a large amount of information in a single word. As a result of this, words in South Bolivian Quechua can be very long.Heggarty, PaulDerivational morphology
South Bolivian Quechua has many clearly derivational suffixes, where a noun, verb, or adjective is derived from a different lexical category.Heggarty, PaulInflectional morphology
Verbs
There are several categories of verbal suffixes in South Bolivian Quechua. These include modal suffixes, object markers, tense and aspect markers, and person markers. South Bolivian Quechua has a great amount of modal suffixes that are used to express a range of concepts. Some examples include: * ''-ra'' "un-, undo"; ''wata-ra-'' "unknot, untie" * ''-naya'' "intend to, about to, do as if to"; ''willa-naya-'' "act as if to tell" * ''-ysi'' "help someone"; ''mik”u-ysi-y'' "help him eat" * ''-na'' "have to, be able to" (obligative); ''willa-na-'' "have to tell" * ''-pu'' "for someone else" (benefactive); ''qu-pu-y'' "give it to him" Some of these modal suffixes can be derivational if used with a non-verb—for example, ''-naya'' and ''-na''. Person markers differentiate between first, second, and third persons and plurality, as well as an inclusive and exclusive first person plural. Object markers and subject markers are used in the language, and object markers appear before subject markers. The object marker is ''-wa'' for a first person object and ''-su'' for a second person object. The following table details possible combinations of object and subject markers. Some person categories lack a subject and/or object marker. All non-present tenses in the indicative are marked by a suffix directly preceding the person marking. The present subjunctive is marked with a suffix following the person marking. Examples of tense markers include the simple past suffix ''-rqa'', past imperfect ''-yka'', and past perfect ''-sqa''. Tense suffixes can change form depending on person and can alter person marking in some cases: for instance, in the past imperfect tense, both the third person singular and plural subject markers (typically ''-n'', ''-nchiq'', or ''-nku'' depending on object) become ''-q'', meaning that a verb in the past imperfect with a third person subject would end in ''-yka-q''.Nouns
Apart from case-marking suffixes, nouns in South Bolivian Quechua can also be pluralized with the suffix ''-kuna'' (or by a numeral modifier preceding the noun). However, most speakers use the suffix -s, borrowed from Spanish, when the noun ends in a vowel. For example, wasi ("house") becomes wasis ("houses") or runa ("person") becomes runas ("people/persons"). The Quechua suffix -kuna is usually only used when a noun ends in a consonant, such as with yan (road), which becomes yankuna (roads). A collective marker, ''-ntin'', also exists to denote “togetherness”, as in ''alqu michi-ntin'' "the dog, together with the cat". Possessiveness is marked by a suffix attached to the noun, with the form that the morpheme takes dependent on person, plurality, and whether it is following a vowel or consonant.Other lexical categories
Pronouns in the language have no person markers, but do have plural markers that vary by person. Possessive pronouns are marked by the addition of the appropriate genitive suffix. Adjectives can be made into superlatives with the suffix ''-puni'', as in ''kosa'' "good"; ''kosa-puni'' "good above all others, best".Independent suffixes
Some suffixes in South Bolivian Quechua can be used with words of any lexical category, and are generally found at the end of the word after all other suffixes. Some examples are: * ''-ri'' "please, nicely, with delight" (polite) * ''-pis'' "even though, even if, and, also" (additive) * ''-chu'' "is it so?" (non-factual, question marker) * ''-chus'' "if, maybe" (dubitative)Reduplication
Syntax
Word order
The basic word order of South Bolivian Quechua is stated to be SOV. However, because nouns are marked for case, word order is in fact very flexible and is generally varied for the purposes of emphasis. For instance, the following sentences all mean "Atahuallpa had Huascar killed": * Atawallpa sipi-chi-rqa Waskar-ta. * Atawallpa Waskar-ta sipi-chi-rqa. * Waskara-ta Atawallpa sipi-chi-rqa. * Waskar-ta sipi-chi-rqa Atawallpa. One aspect of word order that is constant in the language is the fact that noun modifiers must directly precede the noun ( adjective-noun).Case marking
South Bolivian Quechua is nominative-accusative. Nouns can have the following case markers: * Genitive ''-q/-qpa/-qpata'' * Accusative ''-ta'' * Dative ''-man'' * Ablative ''-manta'' * Locative ''-pi'' * Purposive ''-paq'' * Causal ''-rayku'' * Instrumental ''-wan'' * Comitative ''-tawan'' * Allative ''-kama'' Lack of a case marker indicates the nominative.Passives
Passives are marked by suffixes, including ''-sqa'' on the verb, ''-manta'' "from, by" on the agent, and ''-wan'' "with" on the instrument, as in the following examples: * ''Chay runa alqu-manta k"ani-sqa'' "That man was bitten by the dog" * ''Runa rumi-wan maqa-sqa'' "The man was hit with a rock"Subordination
Subordination is mostly indicated by participles, and can be marked for tense only relative to the main verb. Subordination need not be explicitly marked, as certain participles can be understood as subordinative—for example, a literal gloss of ''His coming, I will leave'' can be interpreted as ''When he comes, I will leave'' or ''If he comes, I will leave''. Other suffixes such as ''-qti'' "when" and ''-rayku'' "because" can also be used to mark a subordinate clause. In addition, subordination can also be indicated lexically by ''ukta...chaymanta...'' "first...then..." or ''ukta...q"ipanta...'' "first...afterwards...", as in the following examples: * ''Ukta q"awa-wa-n, chaymanta chaski-n'' "First he saw me, then he ran" * ''Ukta q"awa-wa-spa, q"ipanta pay chaski-n'' "First seeing me, afterwards he ran" ("After seeing me, he ran")Notes
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