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When
the object is specified (i.e., the range of reference is restricted)
it is brought immediately after the subject and in addition the
accusative case sign ‘mi’ is added to it. Otherwise, the normal
order is |
|
Subject-Dative-Accusative-Verb |
 o
alyi mi yo ohot |
|
I pig acc. meat feed-p.t. |
| ‘I fed the pig with meat’ |
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| o
yo mi alyi mi ohot
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I meat acc. pig acc. feed-p.t. |
| ‘I fed meat (specified) to pig’ |
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Noun
Phrase : The noun phrase may consist of the head noun and the
other optional elements that modify the head noun. When the numeral
adjective and another modifier are present, the modifier follows
the headnoun followed by the numeral adjective. If the case marker
is present it occurs at the end of the noun phrase. But the word
order is not rigid in a noun phrase, the modifier can precede the
head, though it is not common. If the intensifier is present, it
immediately follows the head noun followed by other elements. The
first element in a noun phrase gets more emphasis than the other
elements. Determiners precede the case sign and follow all other
elements present in a noun phrase. A representative sample is given
below : |
aki ano aya kone si
dog very good one det.
ano aya aki kone si
very good dog one det.
‘a very good dog’
ude ano neti ako so
house very new loc.
ano neti ude ako so
ude ako ano neti so
‘in a very new house’
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When
the demonstratives and genitives are used, they precede the headnoun. |
| sika nym
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|
this woman |
| ‘this woman’ |
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| hka
myu |
|
that man |
| ‘that (invisible) man’ |
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| ika
alyi |
|
that pig |
| ‘that (remote) pig’ |
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|
m ka
ude |
|
he gen. house |
| ‘his house’ |
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The
verb phrase consists of the verb and other noun phrase(s). The occurrence
of cases like accusative, dative, locative, instrumental, ablative,
purposive, etc., are dictated by the nature of the verb. See the
illustrations where sentences consisting of noun phrases with different
case relations are listed. |
