Powhatan/Grammar

Grammar Outlines

Grammar Outline: ---

I Morphosyntax

A Direct

1 Verbs with 1st or 2nd person subjects and third person objects are direct and are marked with a suffix

B Inverse

1 Verbs with 3rd person subjects and 1st or 2nd person objects are inverse and are marked with a suffix

C Negation

1 The Powhatan negative prefix “MaTa” has several forms which are in complementary distribution

II Morphology

A Noun Inflection (Powhatan has extensive verbal and nominal morphology)

1 Gender

a Nouns are divided into two different genders; animate and inanimate. This comes into play with pluralization and possession

2 Number

a There are two number distinctions; singular and plural

3 Obviation

a When 2 or more animate nouns occur within a sentence and are not conjoined, the focus or proximate noun is inflected for major 3rd person. The remaining nouns are inflected for minor 3rd person

4 Possession

a Possessed nouns are inflected for person and number

b Possessive prefixes can be used with almost any noun in Mattaponi

c Certain nouns (including most body parts and kinship terms, and some words for personal objects like clothing) have inalienable possession. That means you must use a possessive prefix with one of those words. For these words, the possessive pronouns are slightly different. The pronouns are nih-, kih-, o-, and mih- before a root noun that begins with a consonant, and n-, k-, w-, and m- before a root noun that begins with a vowel.

d When animate words use the third person form ("his or her"), there is not only a prefix (o- or w-) but also a suffix (-an) at the end of the word. This is not true for inanimate words.

B Verb Inflection (There are 4 Powhatan verb categories: Inanimate Intransitive (II), Animate Intransitive (AI), Transitive Inanimate (TI), and Transitive Animate (TA))

1 Intransitive Verbs

a Agree with the gender of their subjects

2 Transitive Verbs

a Agree with the number of their inanimate objects. If the subject noun is not present then the verb also has inflection for the number of the subject. Transitive Animate Verbs

1 Agree with the number of both their subjects and their objects which are animate

III Syntax

A Syllable Stress

1 syllables alternate in stress from light to heavy

2 if the 1st vowel is weak (uh or e) then even syllables are light, otherwise odd syllables are light

B Word Order

1 Mattaponi's word order is primarily SUBJECT VERB OBJECT (SVO), but there are exceptions

C Topicalization

1 This is a property of Powhatan syntax which is achieved by adding an independent pronoun

D Questions

1 Yes/No

a The use of non-affirmative endings alone or in addition to an interrogative prefix.

2 Content / WH-word Questions

a Questioned elements are moved to the beginning of the sentence