Mingo Mini-Lesson (17)


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Lost Arrow :: Part I, Sentence 6

Thsiatháíne' ne haksút kanöta'ke ëöta'tisyútë'.
When Grandfather Thunder walks on the mountain he takes along his stick.


kanöta'ke  ::  on the mountain

Recall earlier that we encountered the Locative Suffix -kô, meaning "inside, within". We now encounter a second Locative Suffix, -'ke, meaning "on" or sometimes "at".  We can add this suffix onto some of the
nouns we've already learned.

ka'nö'ke  --  on the arrow
kanöhsa'ke  --  on the house

When you add this suffix onto a word that refers to a person, it adds the meaning of "at so-and-so's place".  For example:

haksútke  --  at my grandfather's place
sahsútke  --  at your grandfather's place
höwöhsutke  --  at his grandmother or grandfather's place
köwöhsutke  --  at her grandmother or grandfather's place

Note that when ths suffix attaches to a word ending in a consonant, it takes the shortened form -ke instead of the longer form -'ke.

The regular word for "mountain" is kanötate'.  Literally, this is a verb which means something like "the mountain is in place".  To talk about a chain of mountains, you can use the word kanötatényö'.
 


ëöta'tisyútë'  ::  he will walk with a cane

This is our first Future verb form.  The Future form can be spotted by its characteristic -ë- either at or near the beginning of the word. Before we look at the Future forms, let's first figure out what prefix pattern this verb takes:

kata'tisyútha'  --  I walk with a cane
sata'tisyútha'  --  you walk with a cane
hata'tisyútha'  --  he walks with a cane
yöta'tisyútha'  --  she walks with a cane
wata'tisyútha'  --  it walks with a cane

From these forms, we can recognize that this verb takes the Agent-A Pattern of prefixes. You may also notice, however, that our 5 example forms all have a different looking verb stem than the word that actually
shows up in the story.  This brings us to another important point in learning about Mingo grammar.  As we have already seen many times over, verbs in Mingo can be divided into a prefix and a stem.  The prefix tells us who was involved in the action, and the stem tells us what that action was.  What we see now is that a particular verb can have a number of different stem forms, such as -ata'tisyútë' and -ata'tisyútha'.

The different stem forms give slightly different views of the same basic action.  For instance, the stem form -ata'tisyútha' describes walking with a cane done on a regular, repeated basis.  For this reason, we call this is the Habitual stem.  The ending -ha' is very characteristic of Habitual stems.  The other stem form, -ata'tisyútë' describes a single instance of walking with a cane.  This is called the Punctual stem.  The ending -ë' is very characteristic of Punctual stems.

If you like, you can think of the different stem forms as being similar to the different forms a verb can take in English, such as:

talk
be talking
talked
have talked
have been talking
will talk
etc...

A summary of all the verb stems we've seen so far, listed with the type of stem they are, is given at the end of this mini-lesson.

The collection of different stem forms that a verb can take is called its stem set.  Verbs describing actions typically have about a dozen different stem forms in their stem set, although we will focus on just the three or four most common stem types in these mini-lessons.  The Habitual and Punctual stems are ones that we will see over and over again, as they are quite commonly used.

Stem forms and prefixes interact with each other in several important ways.  For instance, the Future prefix can never co-occur with the Habitual stem of a verb.  If you want to add the Future prefix, you have to use the Punctual stem.  The five Future forms for this verb are as follows:

ëkata'tisyútë'  -- I will walk with a cane
ëhsata'tisyútë'  --  you will walk with a cane
ëöta'tisyútë'  --  he will walk with a cane
ëyöta'tisyútë'  -- she will walk with a cane
ëwöta'tisyútë'  --  it will walk with a cane

With the prefix k-, the Future prefix simply adds ë-.

With s-, the Future takes the form ëh-.

With h-, the Future takes the form ë-. The -h- then drops out. This leaves the -ë- of the Future prefix next to the -a- of the verb stem. However, the sequence -ëa- is never allowed in Mingo, and is always converted to -ëö-.

With the prefix yö-, the Future simply adds ë-.

With the prefix w-, the Future prefix adds ë-. This creates the sequence -ëwa-, which is converted by regular rule into -ëwö-.

The basic word for a cane is ata'tishæ'.


Summary of Verb Stems

Below is a list of all the verb stems we have studied so far, listed along with the type of stem they are.

Sentence 1

-ya'tí  --  be alone  [Stative]
-ksa'aa  --  be a child  [Stative]
-nôkek  --  lived (somewhere)  [Stative Past]
-nôke'  --  live (somewhere)  [Stative]

Lesson 2
-yasônö'  --  was called  [Stative Past]
-yásö  --  be called  [Stative]

Lesson 3
-kwëtææ'ö  --  be lonely  [Stative]
-atênút  --  be singing  [Stative]

Lesson 6
-atháíne'  --  take a walk  [Motion]
-ata'tisyútë'  --  walk with a cane  [Punctual]
-ata'tisyútha'  --  walk with a cane  [Habitual]


Summary of New Vocabulary for Lost Arrow, Part I Sentence 6

ata'tishæ'  --  cane
ëhsata'tisyútë'  --  you will walk with a cane
ëkata'tisyútë'  -- I will walk with a cane
ëöta'tisyútë'  --  he will walk with a cane
ëwöta'tisyútë'  --  it will walk with a cane
ëyöta'tisyútë'  -- she will walk with a cane
haksút  --  my grandfather
haksútke  --  at my grandfather's place
hata'tisyútha'  --  he walks with a cane
hatháíne'  --  he takes a walk
höwöhsút  --  his grandfather
höwöhsutke  --  at his grandmother or grandfather's place
huhsút  --  his grandfather
kanöhsa'ke  --  on the house
kanötate'  --  mountain
kanötatényö'  --  mountain chain
kanöta'ke  --  on the mountain
kata'tisyútha'  -- I walk with a cane
katháíne'  --  I take a walk
ka'nö'ke  --  on the arrow
köwöhsutke  --  at her grandmother or grandfather's place
köwöhsút  --  her grandfather
kuhsút  --  her grandfather
sahsút  --  your grandfather
sahsútke  --  at your grandfather's place
sata'tisyútha'  --  you walk with a cane
satháíne'  --  you take a walk
thsiatháíne'  --  when he takes a walk
wata'tisyútha'  --  it walks with a cane
watháíne'  --  it takes a walk
yöta'tisyútha'  -- she walks with a cane
yötháíne'  --  she takes a walk


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