Four more sentences from Language X. Set them next to Problem C — the verb forms are shifting. Stuck? Pin recurring words across both problems with the click-highlighter to spot what triggers the change.
Concept: agreement. Two grammatical units agree when they
share at least one feature. A familiar English example is number
agreement between subject and verb: the woman dances
(singular subject, verb has -s) vs the women dance
(plural subject, bare verb). The two forms are obligatory — swap them
and the sentence is ungrammatical. The "feature" being shared in that
case is number. Other languages share other features in other places:
verbs may agree with subjects, objects, or both; in person, in number,
in gender, in animacy.
Your task. Compare these four sentences with the eight from Problem C, then answer:
Your task. Compare these four sentences with the eight from Problem C, then answer:
- (a) Describe the verbal agreement system in Language X. Cite examples.
- (b) Translate "The bird sees the river and the trees" into Language X, and gloss the morphology.
extra data · Language X (Dialect I)
click a word · drag-select letters to mark a morpheme
Recall from Problem C:
kanab → kanabi, telum → telumi,
lomu → lomun, pano → panon, kura → kuran,
Selu = dance, feru = see, huni = chase,
bara = study, o = and. Word order is SOV.
questions
(a) Describe the verbal agreement system in Language X (Dialect I). Cite examples — including ones from Problem C.
Model: Transitive verbs agree with the object in number. The verb takes a final
-a when the object is plural and stays bare when the object is singular.
- (18)
kanab kuran baraa— singular subject, plural object (kuran) →bara+a. - (24)
kanab kura bara— singular object → barebara. - (23)
telumi lomun feru+a→ferua, plural object (lomun). - (25)
lomu kuran hunia— plural object (kuran) →huni+a.
Selu.
(b) Translate (and gloss the morphology): "The bird sees the river and the trees."
Needs vocab from Problems A & B (audio), which aren't reproduced here. Sketch the structure in the textarea, then check the model answer.
Structural answer: the word order is
[bird] [river o trees] ferua.
- Subject:
bird(singular). - Object: conjoined NP
river o trees(plural overall — the conjoined object contains a plural). - Verb:
feru+-a(plural-object agreement) →ferua. - Plural of tree: depends on whether the stem ends in a vowel (gets
-n) or a consonant (gets-i), per Problem C(b).
Problem from the International Linguistics Challenge 2025 qualification round, problem D ("Verbal Agreement", Language X, ★★☆). Source: lingchallenge.org. Framing paraphrased; data and original problem set credited to its authors. Previous: ← Problem C · Word Order · Next: Problem E · Dialectal Variation →