| amsilģ |
`she
buffalo without issue’ |
amisic |
`he
baffalo’ |
| anulono |
`from
the child’ |
| amsiqó |
`buffaloes’ |
| ana
aFulo kt |
`too
little rice’ |
| |
(lit.
rice little too) etc. |
|
|
| A
noun may be formally defined as that grammatical class which on the
paradigmatic axis is capable of taking gender and case markers and
on the systematic axis is capable of being an i/c of postpositions
and particles including the plural morpheme and functions as the nucleus
of a NP. |
| Verbs
|
| On
the paradigmatic axis, a verb in Sema is capable of showing opposition
in tense, model and aspect as in : |
| niye
asi cśuanģ |
`I
will eat meat’ |
| niye
asi cśwe |
`I
ate meat’ |
| asi
cślņ |
`eat
meat (imp)’ |
| niye
asi cścey |
`I
was eating meat (habitual)’ etc. |
|
|
| On
the systematic axis, a verb in Sema is the nucleus of a VP. In addition
to a verb, a VP may have a NP and or an adverb phrase as in: |
| niye
asi cśnanģ |
`I
will eat meat’ |
| niye
isi asi cśnanģ |
`I
will eat meat today’ |
| niye
ana kinķ anģ |
`I
have two children’ etc. |
|
|
| A
verb may therefore be defined as the grammatical class which on the
paradigmatic axis is capable of showing opposition in tense, model
and aspect and on the systematic axis is the nucleus of a verb phrase. |
| Indeclinable
|
|
The class of indeclinables include a few grammatical classes which
can be differentiated amongst themselves only at the syntagmetic level.
An attempt is made here to differentiate these classes viz., adjectives,
adverbs, particles, postpositions and intensifiers. |
| Adjectives
|
| An
adjective is usally in attributive construction with a noun and may
either follow or precede a noun with which it is in construction,
i.e., a sub-class of adjectives always follow the noun concerned,
while another sub-class precedes the noun and yet some others could
either follow or precede the noun with which it is in construction
with e.g. |
| az
aFulo |
`some
water’ |
| akuhu
z |
`red
water’ |
| ayeFi
kmka
akma
yeFi |
`hard
ground’ |
|
|
| And
in attributive construction an adjective is capable of taking the
plural marker, as in : |
| akģqó |
`houses’ |
| akģ
zeuqó |
`large
houses’ |
|
|
| An
adjective can also occur in a predicative complement i.e, in a NP1
NP2 type of sentence the adjective can occur alone in the slot of
NP2 as in : |
| anuye
akipici |
`the
child (is) lazy’ |
|
|
| When
an adjective occurs in the NP2 position of a NP1, NP2 type of sentence,
the adjective is capable of taking the past tense marker1 as in: |
| hiye
kize kč |
‘it
was big’ |
|
|
| The
adjectives, however, do not take present and future tense markers,
as in : |
| hiye
kize |
`it
is big’ |
| hiye
kize sinanģ |
`it
iwll be big’ |
| |
(lit.
it big do will) |
|
|
| An
adverb can also occur in a predicative construction, as in : |
| anuye
hile anģ |
`the
child is here’ |
|
|
| The
difference between the two occurrences is that when an adjective functions
as a predicative complement the sentence will be of NP1, NP2 type
without a verb or a copula whereas when an adverb occurs as a predicative
complement, the sentence will be NP VP type with at least a copula
occurring with the adverb. Secondly adverbs are not capable of taking
tense markers. |
