Uyghur grammar note - the past simple

I just realised I haven't posted any grammar lessons. Now here it is, the easy peasy past simple. The formation is simple as the same suggests: verb root + (mi - negative particle) + D (past sign, alternating between d/t depending on the phonetic context) + personal ending + (mu - interrogative particle)


Mi and mu never changes. D changes to d after a vowel or a voiced consonant, and to t after a voiceless consonant. Now the variable bits: the personal endings:

                                          Singular                                  Plural

First person:         -im  -üm  -um                                -uq
Second person:     -iņ   -üņ   -uņ                 -iņlar  -üņlar  -uņlar
Second person:             -iņiz
   (formal)
Third person:                  -i                                                -i

Anyone familiar with Turkish will notice from the paradigm some significant differences between Uyghur and Turkish. The most striking difference is the incompleteness of the vowel harmony in Uyghur. The really 'harmonised' persons are the first singular and the second singular and plural (put in red). The vowel of the formal second person singular and third person (sg. and pl.) is fixed on i, whereas that of first person plural is fixed on u. Moreover, the plural ending -lar in the second person plural ending doesn't seem to phonetically agree to the preceding vowel either.

In any Turkish grammar book with paradigms one will usually spot four varieties of a harmonised vowel slot: i, ı, ü and u. In Uyghur, one doesn't. But it's only in the orthography. In the actual pronunciation, there is a distinction between the high front vowel i and it's centralised version ı, which, however, are rendered the same orthographically as 'ى' and here in transliteration, 'i'. They are allophones to each other and a native speaker is supposed to know naturally where to pronounce it as i and where as 'ı'. The rules are rather complicated and will be included in a detailed discussion on Uyghur phonology I'll publish in future. But the general rule is that when there are 'back' consonants, such as q, ğ and x, or back and low vowels, such as a, o, u, around, i is realised as ı if not further harmonised into u. In other cases it's realised as i, if not harmonised into ü. In fact, the harmonisations i -> ü and ı -> u do occur where the orthography doesn't represent it sometimes. But it's not the subject of discussion of this post. Uyghur phonetic changes are very complicated and they involve a lot of deletion, lenition, devoicing, tensing and laxing, which explains why you never hear a good, clear 'ikki' but always a 'shki' or even 'shke'. As I said, this is not the subject of discussion today. I'll post something in the future, hopefully soon.

Now no waffling, let's conjugate some verbs:

ötmek: to past, to spend (time)

mən   öttüm                        biz     öttuq
sən      öttüņ                        silər   öttüņlar
siz       öttiņiz
u          ötti                              ular   ötti

oqumaq: to read, to study

mən   oqudum                    biz      oquduq
sən      oquduņ                    silər    oquduņlar
siz       oqudiņiz
u          oqudi                          ular    oqudi

barmaq: to go

mən   bardim                      biz     barduq
sən      bardiņ                      silər   bardiņlar
siz       bardiņiz
u          bardi                           ular   bardi