[color=#FF0000]As work progresses, it becomes clear that earlier sentences or constructions may need to be redone. Overrides will be shown in red, and when I'm done I'll go back and fix them all.[/color]

1. i=rîŋ-Ø ha-ndéb-e-r.
the=sun-ABS ANTIPASS-shine-NONPAST-3S.DEF
"I rîŋ handéber."
"The sun shines."

There's a fair amount going on here. Let's take it word by word.

rîŋ is the Classical Quazian word for sun; it has animate gender (CQ nouns are either animate or inanimate). It is considered nominative by noun alignment and ergative by verb alignment (despite the lack of an object; this will be explained). Resultingly, it has no postposition marking case, and is marked on the verb by the 3rd singular definite marker -r. It is also in absolute state- that ABS in the gloss does not indicate absolutive case. The absolute state is marked in animates by the null morpheme, but we'll still get in the habit of showing it in our glosses and morpheme analysis.

i- is a definite article clitic attaching as a prefix to rîŋ. It is one of a number of exceptions to the rule that the accent always falls on the second-to-last syllable of a (phonological) word (its inanimate counterpart, as we'll see, acts normally). Like other clitics, it is written as a separate word.

handéber is a conjugated form of the verb ndéb. The prefix ha- marks an antipassive, which may in some verbs be marked by a suppletive stem; in the unactive voice this verb means "to shine on (something) [of intrinsic, rather than reflected light]." There is no accusative in this sentence, so the antipassive must be used.

The stem is -ndéb-, and the thematic vowel -e- indicates nonpast time (it may show up as either -e- or -a- depending on the frontness or backness of the root vowel). Finally, -r is a third person singular definite marker agreeing with rîŋ (for nouns with no article, a different suffix would be used instead). We'd think of it as a subject marker, but a better description may be an agent marker; it agrees with the subject of antipassive verbs, and the agent of transitive verbs in the unactive voice, but not the subject of intransitive sentences in the unactive voice. (Nouns case-marking is accusative-aligned). It seems fair to call it an "ergative" marker, since the voice system of verbs is ergative-aligned, even though this sentence isn't transitive.

A side effect of the ergative verb alignment mixed with the gender system is that only animate nouns may ever be in a syntactic position to take these markers. Later, we'll discuss strategies for translating English sentences that place an inanimate noun in these positions.

Here's a full table of the ergative agreement markers.

	Singular	Plural
1st (exclusive)	-ń	-yæk
1st (inclusive)		-yæbak
2nd	-t	-wa
3rd definite	-r	-m
3rd indefinite	-naq	-nam

Note that the first person plural inclusive ending -yæbak cannot be accented, so any accent that would otherwise appear on it must be on the syllable behind it. (Usually).

2. i=rîŋ-Ø ndeb-e-wáha-t qûw-a
the=sun-ABS shine-nonpast-ANTIPASS.PARTCPL.ANIM-SG progressive.auxiliary-NONPAST
"I rîŋ ndebewáhat qûwa."
"The sun is shining".

In this sentence, we are introduced to auxiliaries and participles. The progressive-aspect auxiliary qûw- forces the main verb into a participle form (as we'll see, CQ's participles are used in a wide variety of constructions, not all of which we'd think of as requiring participles). Note that qûw- is more limited in usage than the English progressive (for example, it is almost always found only in the nonpast tense, with present meaning).

Participles agree with their "head" nouns (as we keep going we'll start elucidating what exactly a participle's head noun is in a given construction) in gender and sometimes number. They have both unaccusative and antipassive versions (antipassive participles do not require the prefix ha-, but they will attach to the suppletive stems of verbs that have them in the antipassive). Here is a chart:

	Animate	Inanimate
Direct	-mænæt	-mæn
Antipassive	-wahat	-wak

If the head noun is plural (nouns themselves do not have plural forms, but these are consistently marked on certain dependents and in some cases on verbs), the -t of the animate forms will change to a -q. (Participles do not distinguish between singular and plural inanimate heads). Because the participle is antipassive, its head noun is the same as the subject, and so it agrees with rîŋ.

Note that there is a nonpast marker in the participle. We're not generally used to participles having time as well as aspect (which is marked as well); but since participles can be used in a variety of clausal constructions where time remains relevant, CQ participles mark for tense as well. Finally, note that the accent-on-penultimate-syllable rule is in effect.

The auxiliary, qûw-, acts as the main verb and pushes the now-participlized former main verb into a position just before it; where it can, it also forces the now-participlized verb to agree with the patient. (It can't do that in this example, which is an intransitive sentence, so the participle agrees with the subject). It marks progressive time and has no antipassive.

If this sentence were transitive, the agreement markers would switch up; qûw- would now recognize the nominative (remember, nouns are accusative-marked) as its new ergative and acquire an ergative agreement marker, while its participle would agree with the absolutive/accusative in gender and (if animate) number. The underlying mechanism here appears to be that in sentences with an auxiliary, all core arguments (either the experiencer in intransitive sentences or both the agent and patient in transitive ones) must be agreed with by a verb. In an intransitive sentence, the auxiliary has no ergative to work with, so agreement with the subject must be borne by the participle. In a transitive sentence, the auxiliary can agree with its auxiliary and push the participle to agree with the object. (An alternate, and possibly more compelling, analysis is that in participle-auxiliary constructions it's the participle that's really the main verb, and its alignment is fully ergative, so it agrees with either the experiencer or the patient, but never the agent. The auxiliary, which has no antipassive, only agrees with ergatives.)

3. i=rîŋ-Ø ha-ne-ndéb-i-r.
the=sun-ABS ANTIPASS-PERF-shine-PAST-3S.DEF
"I rîŋ hanendébir."
"The sun shone".

In this sentence, we are introduced not only to the past tense but also to the perfective aspect. In lieu of further context for this sentence, I have chosen to interpret it as meaning that the sun shone at a single, given time in the past. This requires the perfective aspect, which is formed by reduplication of the initial root consonant followed by e (if the root vowel is front) or a (if it is back).

This may trigger dissimilation. In particular:
*ⁿD...ⁿD -> N...ⁿD (where ⁿD is any voiced prenasalized plosive; note that *nḍ...nḍ dissimilates to n...nḍ and *nj...nj to ń...nj.)
*ⁿT...ⁿT -> D...ⁿT
*ł...ł -> h...ł
*lh...lh -> y...lh

Finally, note that the a/e of the nonpast tense has become an i. This is uniform for all past tense forms and does not change according to vowel harmony.

4. i=rîŋ-Ø ha-ne-ndéb-e-r.
the=sun-ABS ANTIPASS-PERF-shine-NONPAST-3S.DEF
"I rîŋ hanendéber."
"The sun will shine."

Here we have a sentence with future tense in English. This can lead to ambiguity in CQ, which does not have a true future tense (only a nonpast/past distinction). However, the use of the perfective aspect indicates that the action must take place at a time thought of as a single, closed point; this is a good indication that the time is future. The situation is similar to that of Russian, which combines present endings with the perfective stem to indicate a future perfective.

5. i=rîŋ-Ø ndeb-e-wáha-t ćæ̂mp-e
the=sun-ABS shine-nonpast-ANTIPASS.PARTCPL.ANIM-SG continue.AUX-NONPAST
"I rîŋ ndebewáhat ćæ̂mpe."
"The sun has been shining."

Classical Quazian doesn't really do much with perfects as Western European languages work with them- that's not the same as the perfective; the Western European perfect focuses on the completion, or extension up to a particular point, of the action. The English sentence in this example combines its perfect and continuous aspects. (This is another indication that we can't use the perfective, since mixing the perfective aspect in CQ with the progressive auxiliary qûw- would be nonsensical.) Instead, we'll introduce another auxiliary, the "continuous" auxiliary ćæ̂mp. This is not quite the same as the progressive auxiliary, and is better translated by the English "continue to". Here, we'll take this sentence (which again is devoid of the sort of context we would want to choose a more precise translation) and presume that the sun has been shining for some time in the near past and is still shining now.

6. i=rîŋ-Ø ṭúlh ha-ndéb-e-r.
the=sun-ABS again ANTIPASS-shine-NONPAST-3S.DEF
"I rîŋ ṭúlh handéber."
"The sun is shining again".

Here we're working with our first adverb, ṭúlh "again". It goes before the main verb (and in between a participle and its auxiliary in those sorts of sentences). Note that the Classical Quazian sentence uses the simple nonpast with no auxiliary, while the English sentence is progressive in aspect; the CQ progressive auxiliary is a bit more limited in usage.

7. i=rîŋ-Ø kítan ha-ndéb-er.
the=sun-ABS tomorrow ANTIPASS-shine-NONPAST-3S.DEF
"I rîŋ kítan handéber."
"The sun will shine tomorrow."

Despite the difference in tense and aspect between 6) and 7) in their English versions, CQ doesn't do anything more than change the adverb used. In 7), the reasoning is that the sun will be shining all day tomorrow, for an extended and imperfect period (rather than, say, just at two in the afternoon). Thus we use the imperfective with no progressive auxiliary.

8. i=rîŋ-Ø nću-mǽnæ-t ha-ndéb-er.
the=sun-ABS be.bright-UNACC.PARTCPL.ANIM-SG ANTIPASS-shine-NONPAST-3S.DEF
"I rîŋ nćumǽnæt handéber."
"The sun shines brightly."

Classical Quazian doesn't really have adjectives or adverbs the way we think of them. (It has a small, closed class of adjectives, but "bright" is not among them). Instead, it has a large number of stative verbs, whose participles act fairly close to adjectives.

Adjectives and adverbs are not distinguished morphologically, but they can be distinguished syntactically. Here, nćumǽnæt is placed in adverbial position just before the verb, so it can be seen as modifying the verb- but it agrees in gender and number with its head noun, rîŋ. A more precise translation of the CQ might be "The sun, while being bright, shines."

nćú is a "contract verb" (terminology borrowed from Greek), meaning that its stem ends in a vowel rather than a consonant. Here are the rules for contract verbs:

-No contract verbs ever take the nonpast tense vowel, regardless of whether anything comes after it. They simply drop it; thus nćumǽnæt instead of *nćuamǽnæt.

-In the past tense it's a bit more complicated. Stems ending in u or o insert an epenthetic w between the stem and the past tense morpheme i. Stems ending in i are defective and don't change at all in the past. Stems ending in e or æ raise these to i and e respectively, and stems ending in a insert an epenthetic r, which further lowers the past tense morpheme to e.

-Any ergative or participle markers are attached to this uninflected nonpast or weirdly inflected past stem.

-Special rules come into play when non-indicative moods are used. We'll worry about those later.

9. i=nću-mǽnæ-t rîŋ-Ø ha-ndéb-e-r
the=be.bright-UNACC.PARTCPL.ANIM-SG sun-ABS ANTIPASS-shine-NONPAST-3S.DEF
"I nćumǽnæt rîŋ handéber."
"The bright sun shines".

The first thing we notice about this sentence is that the only difference between it and sentence number 8) is that the participle has moved behind the noun instead of the verb. As I noted, CQ makes no morphological distinction between adjectives and adverbs, but it does make a syntactic distinction: participles acting like adverbs go in an adverbial position before the verb, while those acting like adjectives stick within the noun phrase. (As may be apparent, Classical Quazian is mainly head-final.)

Note also that the definite article clitic has migrated to the participle. Generally speaking, it likes to appear at the start of its noun phrase.

10. i=rîŋ-Ø śéy kûł-a.
the=sun-ABS now rise-NONPAST
"I rîŋ śéy kûła."
"The sun is rising now."

Note that while ndéb was a usually transitive verb which needed to be antipassivized to be used without an object, kûł has no such requirement. Since we have a verb in the usual unactive voice which is intransitive, rîŋ does not act as an ergative, and so no ergative marker appears on the verb.

The use of the adverb śéy precludes the use of the progressive auxiliary qûw.