Ne' nae te'wêtö shô teukwëtææ'ö ne' kaiôni ukwényô hutênút.
He was never lonely because he had a song for company.

hutênút  ::  he's singing

This word literally means "he stands a song for himself", which is the usual way of talking about singing in Mingo.  Note that it ends in -út, the same as kanöhsút "(standing) house".

The verb stem here, the part that means "be singing", is -atênút.  You might notice that this is our first verb stem that starts with a vowel, -a-.  Since it starts with a vowel, we can't use any of the prefix patterns we already know, since all of those are used for verb stems that start with consonants.  Instead, we need to learn a new pattern, the Patient-A pattern.  Here are the words:

akatênút  --  I'm singing
satênút  --  you're singing
hutênút  --  he's singing
kutênút  --  she's singing
utênút  --  it's singing

The Patient-A prefix pattern is a little bit trickier than the other prefix patterns we've seen so far.  First, let's look at the forms of the prefixes that make up the Patient-A pattern:
 

I	ak-
you	s-
he	hu-
she	ku-
it	u-

The trick here is that the three prefixes that end in a vowel, the hu-, ku- and u-, all cause the -a- at the beginning of the verb stem to drop out.  So, for instance, instead of saying "huatênút", we say hutênút,
with the -a- dropping out.  We can write out the changes like this:

hu- + -atênút = hutênút
ku- + -atênút = kutênút
u- + -atênút = utênút

This rule of dropping out the -a- is not an irregularity of this particular verb; it happens in just this way with all verb stems that start with -a-.

Note, however, that the -a- stays when the prefix ends in a consonant, as with ak-, and s-.

By this point, having learned our fourth prefix pattern, some of you may be wondering: How many more patterns are there??  In truth there are about 36 (yikes!).  But, the vast majority of these patterns are only
found with a small number of verbs, and they can all be easily learned once you know the more common patterns.  In these mini-lessons, we'll just be learning the 8 or 10 most frequent patterns.. half of which you
already know!

Here's a summary of the prefix patterns we've seen so far.  Note the similarities between the pattern, especially betwen the two Agent patterns on the one hand and the two Patient patterns on the other.
 

	Agent-C	Agent-X	Patient-X	Patient-A
I	k-	ke-	ake-	ak-
you	s-	se-	sa-	s-
he	ha-	ha-	hu-	hu-
she	ye-	ye-	ku-	ku-
it	ka-	ka-	u-	u-

Here are a few sentences to practice our new "singing" words.

Ne' ne hôkwe hutênút.  --  The man is singing.
Ne' ne yakökwe'ôwe kutênút?  --  Is the Indian woman singing?

Summary of New Vocabulary for Lost Arrow, Part I Sentence 3

akatênút  --  I'm singing
akekwëtææ'ö  --  I'm lonely
akekwëtææ'ônö'  --  I was lonely
hukwëtææ'ö  --  he's lonely
hukwëtææ'ônö'  --  he was lonely
hutênút  --  he's singing
kaiôni  --  the reason why, because
kukwëtææ'ö  --  she's lonely
kukwëtææ'ônö'  --  she was lonely
kutênút  --  she's singing
nae  --  indeed, really
sakwëtææ'ö  --  you're lonely
sakwëtææ'ônö'  --  you were lonely
satênút  --  you're singing
shô  --  just, simply
teukwëtææ'ö  --  he's not lonely
te'wêtö  --  never
ukwényô  --  it's possible, can
ukwëtææ'ö  --  it's lonely
ukwëtææ'ônö'  --  it was lonely
utênút  --  it's singing

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