| e.g. |
| hi:te |
|
‘she gave’ |
| |
|
|
| hi:himacce |
|
‘she was giving’ |
| |
|
|
| hi:pomi |
|
‘she may give’ |
| |
|
|
| hi:?ate |
|
‘she did not give’ |
|
3.4.
|
ADVERBS, like adjectives are identified primarily on syntactic
grounds. Adverbs generally pre cede verbs. Morphologically adverbs are
indeclinable for categories of gender, number, case and also for
categories of tense mood, aspect, negation thus setting up a word class
which is distinguish able from the foregoing word classes.
|
|
e.g.
|
|
| umba?a |
|
‘there’ |
| |
|
|
| imba?a |
|
‘here’ |
|
3.5.
|
PARTICLES, are a class of indeclinable forms which include
connectives like co-coordinating and subordinating conjunctions.
|
|
e.g.
|
|
| sama |
|
‘but’ |
| |
|
|
| hilla?nahâ |
|
‘or else’ |
|
Particles also include clinics which are indeclinable forms which are
bound to preceding phrases or clauses and denote modalities as
|
|
e.g.
|
| interrogation |
|
‘ki’ |
| |
|
|
| condition |
|
‘ma’ |
|
|
NOUNS
|
4.0.
|
Nouns are a class of words whose stems are distinguished or inflected for
one or more of the categories of gender, number and case. The order of occurrence
of the different lexical and gram metrical categories in a noun is, stem +
gender---number + case. The stem may be (i) simple: root; (ii) complex :
root + one or more derivatives ; or (iii) compound: more than one root.
|
4.1.
|
Gender :
|
Nouns stems may be further divided into (1) masculine and (2)
non-masculine. Most nouns do not carry any overt marker of gender, but the
gender of any noun can generally be determined by its meaning. All nouns
referring to the human male belong to the masculine gender; all others
referring to human female, animals, birds, plants, objects, deities, etc.,
belong to the non-masculine gender.
|
| Masculine
|
|
Feminine
|
| a:ba |
|
‘father’ |
|
ayya |
|
‘mother,woman’ |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
 o:la |
|
‘boy’ |
|
po:da |
|
‘girl’ |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ma:ma |
|
‘uncle’ |
|
ko:i |
|
‘bull’ |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
koyyu |
|
‘fowl’ |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
mra:nu |
|
‘tree’ |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
maha:puru
|
|
‘god’ |
|
