PREGLED KABARDINSKE GRAMATIKE - Cryptm.org

Matasović: A Short Grammar of KabardianThe causative verb is always transitive, so the ergative construction is used:fəzə-m ł'ə-r yə-ġā-k' w a "the woman sends a man"woman-ERG man-NOM 3sg-caus.-goIn the indefinite construction the subject and the object have no case endings. Thisconstruction is common in proverbs, in the oral tradition; the verb's arguments areindefinite:məśa dəġ w əź f'a-balāca-śbear wolf dir.-hairy-aff."To the bear the wolf is hairy" (proverb)The verb is stative, and thus intransitive, in this construction.NOMINAL SENTENCEKabardian has no copula, the nominal predicate is juxtaposed to the subject:səyə c'ə-r Alyəm "My name is Alim"1sg.-poss. name-NOM A.Adjectives and common nouns in a sentence with a nominal predicate take theaffirmative suffix (thus becoming stative verbs):Māza-rmoon-NOMyəz-ś "The moon is full"full-aff.Mə-r maz-ś "This is a forest"this-NOM forest-aff.EQUI-NP DELETIONIn a coordinated construction, when two verbs share the same argument, thisargument can be omitted if the agent is the first argument (agent) of a transitive verbor the only argument of an intransitive verb (ie. the "subject" in the same sense as inEnglish):ł'ə-m fəz-ər q'a-yə-łāġ w -ā-ś yəč'əy q'a-ž-ā-śman-ERG woman-NOM dir.-3sg.-see-pret.-aff. and dir.-go-pret.-aff."The man saw the woman and left"ś'ālam χədžabzə-r yəłāġ w ə-ryə k' w až-ā-ś "the young man saw the girl and left"young man girl 3sg.-see-and leave-pret.-aff.ś'āla c'ək' w ə-r q'a-s-ryə, χədžabzə-r q'-yə-łāġ w -ā-ś "the boy came and saw the girl"boy little-NOM dir.-come-and girl-NOM dir.-3sg.-see-pret.-aff.88