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TheMiskito language, the language of theMiskito people of the Atlantic coast ofNicaragua andHonduras, is a member of theMisumalpan language family and also a stronglyGermanic-influenced language.[citation needed] Miskito is as widely spoken in Honduras and Nicaragua as Spanish, it is also an official language in the Atlantic region of these countries. With more than 8 million speakers, Miskito has positioned in the second place in both countries after Spanish. Miskito is not only spoken in Central America, but in Europe (United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, France and Italy), the USA, Canada and in many other Latin American countries. Miskito used to be a royal state language in the 16th to 19th dynasties of the Miskito Kingdom.
The Miskito alphabet is the same as the English alphabet. It has 21 consonants and 5 vowels.
A (a), B (be), C (ce), D (de), E (e), F (ef), G (ge), H (ha), I (i), J (jei), K (ka), L (el), M (em), N (en), O (o), P (pi), Q (ku), R (ar), S (es), T (te), U (yoo), V (vee), W (dubilu), X (eks), Y (yei), Z (zet).
| Short | Long | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Front | Back | Front | Back | |
| High | i | u | iː⟨î⟩ | uː⟨û⟩ |
| Low | a | aː⟨â⟩ | ||
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasals | voiced | m | n | ŋ⟨ng⟩ | ||
| voiceless | m̥⟨mh⟩ | n̥⟨nh⟩ | ŋ̊⟨ngh⟩ | |||
| Plosives | voiceless | p | t | k | ||
| voiced | b | d | ||||
| Fricatives | s | h | ||||
| Liquids | voiced | l,r | ||||
| voiceless | l̥⟨lh⟩,r̥⟨rh⟩ | |||||
| Semivowels | j⟨y⟩ | w | ||||
Word stress is generally on the firstsyllable of each word.
| H has been included on the above consonant chart out of deference to the orthography and previous descriptions, but may in fact represent asuprasegmental feature rather than a consonantal phoneme (except inloanwords such asheven 'heaven'). Occurrence ofh is restricted to the stressed syllable in a word, and its realization consists of thedevoicing of adjacent vowel and consonant phonemes within that syllable. In spelling it is customary to place the letterh at the end of the syllable so affected. |
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Syllables may have up to twoconsonants preceding the vowel nucleus, and two following it. This may be represented by the formula (C)(C)V(C)(C). Examples of monosyllabic words: |
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Within words of more than one syllable interior clusters may therefore contain more than two consonants (rarely more than three), but in such cases there is generally amorpheme boundary involved: |
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Simplification of underlying consonant clusters in verb forms takes place, with stem consonants disappearing when certain suffixes are added to verb stems of certain phonological shapes: |
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| Some determiners | Some quantifiers | |||
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Thedemonstrativesnaha, baha, naura, bukra and theinterrogativedeterminersani anddia precede the noun they determine and require theligature (see below). |
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Theindefinite article and mostquantifiers follow the noun and do not require a ligature. |
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The generalarticleba and theproximal articlena stand at the end of thenoun phrase and require no ligature. The proximal article expresses proximity. |
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Optionally the article may be combined with other determiners or quantifiers, and with the ligature (which seems to convey a greater degree ofdefiniteness). |
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The determiners are used sometimes with pronouns to emphasize the subject in question. |
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Ligature is a term (with precedents in other languages) for describing a grammatical feature of Miskito traditionally referred to with less accuracy in the Miskito context as 'construct'. A ligature is amorpheme (often-ka) which occurs when a noun is linked to some other element in thenoun phrase. In Miskito, most of the elements that require the presence of ligature are ones that precede the head noun:
| Type | Example |
|---|---|
| Determiners |
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| Adjectives |
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| Dependent possessors |
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| Relative clauses |
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Ligature takes a variety of forms:
| Form | Examples |
|---|---|
| -kasuffix |
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| -ika suffix |
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| -ya suffix |
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| -a-INFIX |
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| -ka suffix +-a- INFIX |
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| -ya suffix +-a- INFIX |
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| irregular |
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Some nouns take no ligature morpheme; these mostly denote parts of the body (e.g.bila 'mouth',napa 'tooth',kakma 'nose') or kinship (e.g.lakra 'opposite-sex sibling'), although there is only an imperfect correlation between membership of thismorphological class andsemanticinalienability (see also relationals below).
A noun phrase possessor precedes the possessed noun with ligature (unless inalienable, see above). |
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The possessor may be a personal pronoun if it is emphasized. |
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Such pronouns may be omitted. In either case, personal possessors are grammaticalized as morphological indices. |
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| preposed particle | suffix form | infix form | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | -i | -i- | 'my, our (exc.)' | |
| 2 | -m | -m- | 'your (sg./pl.)' | |
| 3 | ai | 'his, her, its, their' | ||
| 1+2 | wan | 'our (inc.)' |
Ai andwan precede the noun, with ligature unless inalienable. | (aras→araska) (bila) |
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The indices for first or second person are generally suffixed to the-ka or-ya ligature when either is present (with loss of final-a before-i): | (aras→araska) (tasba→tasbaya) |
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Otherwise they are mostly infixed after the infixed ligature-a-: | (utla→watla:) (sula→sualia:) |
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Nouns of the inalienable class (with no ligature) take the same possessive indices, which may again be either suffixed: | (bila) |
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...or infixed: | (napa) |
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Some nouns infix in the first person but suffix in the second, and there are some other miscellaneous irregularities. | (kakma) (duri→duarka) |
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Number is not a morphological category in Miskito.Plural number is indicated in noun phrases by theparticlenani or -nan placed after the noun or pronoun.Nani is optional with numerals. |
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Adjectives used attributively usually follow the head noun and do not require a ligature: |
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but some (including past participles) precede it, in which case the noun, unless inalienable, takes its ligature: |
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Thepersonal pronouns differentiate threepersons and also have anexclusive/inclusive distinction in the first person plural. The generalplural morphemenani or -nan is added to form plurals (except withyawan). Use of these pronouns is optional when person is indexed in the possessed form, relational or verb group.
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
yang 'I/me' man 'you' witin (neutral) 'he/him, she/her, it' | yang nani or yangnan 'we/us (exclusive)' man nani or mannan 'you' witin nani or witinnan 'they/them' yawan 'we/us (inclusive)' |
The pronouns are notcase-specific, and may, under comparable conditions, be marked by the samepostpositions as other noun phrases.
| Pronouns | Place adverbs | Other adverbs | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demonstrative |
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| Interrogative |
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| Negative polarity |
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Dativecomplements are marked by the multi-purposeencliticpostpositionra, which is also alocative (doing duty for both dative and spatial meanings of English 'to', as well as 'in'). The same marker is also often used withdirect objects. |
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This and other postpositions are placed after the last element in anoun phrase, e.g. |
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| ra (enclitic) | 'to, in, at...' | (see above) |
| kat wina | 'to, as far as' 'from' |
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| wal | 'with (general)' |
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| ni | 'with (instrumental)' |
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Relationals are quasi-nouns expressing some relationship (often spatial) to their possessor complement. Many of the relationals perceivably originate inlocatives (in-ra) of nouns designating parts of the body employed metaphorically to convey spatial or other relations.
For example,utla bilara literally means 'in the mouth of the house'. |
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Relationals index pronominal complements in the same way as nouns index their possessors. |
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Some examples of relationals in use: |
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| Spatial relations | Other relations |
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Verbs are conventionally cited with theinfinitive suffix-aia. The stem of many such verbs (obtained by subtracting the infinitive ending) are monosyllabic (bal-, dim-, tak-, dauk-, kaik-, bri-, wi-, pi- etc.); a few are non-syllabic (e.g.w- 'go'). |
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Finite forms include severaltenses andmoods, in each of which theperson (but notnumber) of thesubject is marked bysuffixes. The tenses themselves have characteristic suffixes which combine with the subject-indexing suffixes.
In addition tosynthetic (simple) tenses, there is also a considerable range ofperiphrastic (compound) tenses. These are formed with anon-finite form of the main verb followed by anauxiliary verb.
Some of the synthetic tenses represent original periphrastic tense structures that have become welded into single words. This helps to explain why there are two different forms each in the present, past and future. (The sample verb used ispulaia 'play', stempul-, given here in thethird-person form of each tense.)
| I | II | |
Present tenses: | puluya | pulisa |
Past tenses: | pulata | pulan |
Future tenses: | pulaisa | pulbia |
In addition to asubject index which form part of a verb's suffix, for transitive verbs the verb group includes anobject index in the form of a preverbal particle marking the person (but not the number) of theobject. The subject markers vary somewhat according to the tense, but the most usual forms are shown in the following table (see below for more details).
| Person | Subject suffixes | Object particles |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | -na | ai |
| 2 | -ma | mai |
| 3 | -a | — |
| 1+2 | wan |
Presence of thepersonal pronouns (yang, man, witin, yawan, yang nani...) referring to the indexed subject or object is optional (i.e. there ispro-drop). |
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The absence of an object index preceding a transitive verb signals a third person object: |
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Other participant roles may be expressed by personal pronouns with the appropriatepostpositions, e.g. |
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Forms for a third-person subject, in addition to indexing specific subjects that are equivalent to 'he', 'she', 'it', 'they' or 'we (inclusive)', are also used withtransitive verbs to indicate a non-specific subject, thus providing apassive-like construction. |
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To indicate that a verb has aplural subject, a finite auxiliary,banghwaia, may be added at the end of the verb group, preceded by a same-subject participle. |
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Thestem of a verb is obtained by removing the-aia suffix from the infinitive. Most verb stems end in a consonant, and are conjugated as follows (our sample verb ispulaia 'play').
| Present I | Present II | Past I | Past II | Future I | Future II | Imperative | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | puluna | pulisna | pulatna | pulri | pulaisna | pulamna | |
| 2 | puluma | pulisma | pulatma | pulram | pulaisma | pulma | puls |
| 3 and 1+2 | puluya | pulisa | pulata | pulan | pulaisa | pulbia |
Verbs whose stems end ini (bri- 'have',wi- 'tell',pi- 'eat',di- 'drink',swi- 'allow') vary from the above paradigm in a few minor points.Bal-aia 'come' andw-aia 'go', have an irregular Present I tense. The verbyabaia 'give' is anomalous in a different way by having irregularly derived non-third-person object-indexing forms. Finally, the most irregular verb of all is thedefective and irregularkaia 'to be'.
| Present I | Present II | Past I | Past II | Future I | Future II | Imperative | |
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| 1 | pisuna | pisna | pisatna | piri | piaisna | pimna | |
| 2 | pisuma | pisma | pisatma | piram | piaisma | pima | pis |
| 3 and 1+2 | pisuya | pisa | pisata | pin | piaisa | pibia |
| Present ofbalaia 'come' | Present ofwaia 'go' | |
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| 1 | aulna | auna |
| 2 | aulma | auma |
| 3 / 1+2 | aula | auya |
| Object | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1+2 |
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| Infinitive | aik-aia 'give me/us' | maik-aia 'give you' | yab-aia 'give him/her/it/them' | wank-aia 'give us (inc.)' |
| Present | Past I | Past II | Future I | Future II | Imperative | |
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| 1 | sna | katna | kapri | kaisna | kamna | |
| 2 | sma | katma | kapram | kaisma | kama | bas |
| 3 / 1+2 | sa | kata | kan | kaisa | kabia |
Present I expresses that an action is happening or about to happen at the time of speaking. |
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Present II is a general present, indistinctlyprogressive orhabitual. |
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Past I is aperfect. |
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As the nucleus of a main clausePast II is a simpleaorist past. Connected to a following verb in apast or present tense within aswitch reference chain, it functions as the different-subject participle (see below). |
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Future I expresses that an event is imminent. |
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Future II is a general future. It is also used as anirrealis insubordinate clauses. |
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The second-personimperative ends in-s; itsnegative (prohibitive) counterpart ending in-para. A gentler order may be expressed using the Past II second-person form (ending in-ram). The first-person inclusive plural imperative ('Let's...') ends in-p(i). |
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| Switch reference participles | Negative participle | Past participle | Infinitive | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Same subject | Same subject anterior | Different subject past/present (= Past II) | Different subject future | |||||
| Regular | 1 | puli | pulisi | pulri | pulrika | pulras | pulan | pulaia |
| 2 | pulram | |||||||
| 3 / 1+2 | pulan | pulka | ||||||
| kaia 'to be' | 1 | — | si | kapri | kaprika | — | kan | kaia |
| 2 | kapram | |||||||
| 3 / 1+2 | kan | kaka | ||||||
Theswitch referenceparticiples are used in verb or clause chains sharing the samesubject; only the last verb adopts afinitetense form. |
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These participles are also used in many compound verbs andperiphrastic formations. |
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The anterior participle further expresses that an event occurred before that expressed by the following verb. |
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The different-subject participle in-ka signals a change of subject between it and the following verb, and is used when the latter is in a future tense. |
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When the subject of the different subject participle is first or second person, the ending is-rika if the main verb is future. |
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When the last verb of a different-subject chain is in the present or past tense, the preceding verb must be in the Past II tense. |
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Thenegative participle can be followed by a finite form ofkaia to express any person-tense combination; alternatively these categories may be left implicit by omitting theauxiliary. |
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The past participle, identical in form to the third-person of Past II, is used: (a) as apassiveadjective; |
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(b) in aperiphrastic passive construction withkaia asauxiliary; |
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(c) in an idiomatic construction withdaukaia 'make'. |
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The uses of theinfinitive: (a) approximates that of infinitives in many European languages: |
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(b) include severalmodal constructions. |
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Note: Given the differences in terminology, the following comparative table for names of non-finite forms used in this article, Salamanca's Miskito school grammar and Green'sLexicographic Study of Ulwa (a related language with similar categories) may be found useful: | |||
| This article | Salamanca | Green | |
| same subject simultaneous participle | 'gerundio' | 'proximate' | |
| same subject anterior participle | 'transgresivo' | ||
| different subject future participle | 'conexivo' | 'obviative' | |
The range ofaspectual,modal and other notions that can be expressed is enlarged considerably by the availability of variousperiphrastic constructions in which a verb acting asauxiliary is placed after the main verb. The conjugated component can take a variety of tenses, including periphrastic ones, and the periphrases themselves may often be combined; thus chains of several auxiliaries are possible. Some representative examples of such periphrases follow:
Puli kapri 'I was playing' consists of the same-subject participle ofpulaia followed by the first person of Past II ofkaia 'to be', "playing was-I". |
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Pulaia sna 'I am to play, I have to play' consists ofkaia after an infinitive. |
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This construction with the auxiliary in Past II can express animpossible condition:pulaia kapri 'I should have played' or 'I would have played'. |
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Combining the infinitive with other auxiliary verbs we obtain othermodal constructions. |
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The particlesip, with an anomalous distribution, is used in expressions of possibility and ability. |
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Another type of construction consists of a conjugated main verb followed by a third-person form ofkaia. Various tense sequences for the two verbs are possible and convey a range of nuances.Past perfect andfuture perfect can be expressed by placing both verbs in Past II or future II respectively. |
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By compounding the past perfect construction again withsa, and thenkaka for 'if' (itself really a form ofkaia), we obtain anunfulfilled hypothetical clause. |
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In Miskitosentences theverb (or verb group) regularly comes last. Thesubject, if expressed as anoun phrase, normally precedesobjects and otherconstituents. In these examples the verb is in bold. |
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However, long or heavierconstituents (here in bold) may follow the verb. |
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Demonstrative andinterrogativedeterminers, thepossessiveprocliticsai andwan, and certainadjectives, precede the noun, which takes theligature in these cases. |
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Articles andquantifiers follow nouns. |
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Adpositions andrelationals follow the noun phrase. |
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Auxiliaries follow main verbs. |
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Theobjectprocliticsai,mai andwan precede the main verb. |
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Thenegativeparticleapia follows future-tense verbs, but precedes forms ofkaia 'to be'. |
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Incompound verbs, the conjugated element comes last. |
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Sentence particles follow the verb. |
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Insubordination structures the rule that places subordinate elements first is frequently overridden by a tendency to place long and heavy constituents last. |
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Relative clauses precede the head. |
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Complement and circumstantial clauses may precede or follow the main clause. |
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While no systematic case marking differentiates formally between subjects and objects, there exist (apart from word order) certain option for achieving disambiguation.
One is to mark animate direct objects with the postpositionra. |
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Another is to identify the agent of a transitive verb with the postpositionmita. Sincemita always occurs with agents of transitive verbs it might be viewed as a proto-ergative marker. |
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Yet another way to identify the subject is for it to participate in a verbal periphrasis. Outwardly, the 'particle'bui is placed after such subjects.Bui is the same-subject participle ofbuaia 'get up', so the semantic route of thisgrammaticalization is, for example, from 'Who will get up and remove it?' to 'Who (subject) will remove it?' The use ofbui allows an object to precede a subject (fortopicalization) without this leading to ambiguity.Bui almost always occurs with subjects oftransitive verbs and so may again be understood as a proto-ergative marker. |
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A system of specializedpostpositions is used to identifytopics andfocused constituents:
Lika is a particle that may follow a sentence constituent identifying it as sentence topic. |
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Sika may be placed after a definite noun phrase to foreground it; its effect is similar to that of focusclefting in English. |
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Most verbs are built up from a monosyllabic lexical root ending in a vowel or a single consonant, to which an extension or stem consonant is very often added. The extensions correlate with transitivity: transitive stems have either-k- or-b- (unpredictably), while intransitive stems have-w-. There is also a valency-decreasing verb-prefixai- which, added to transitive stems, produces unergative, reflexive, reciprocal or middle verbs. See the section on Derivation (below) for examples.
Miskito has periphrastic causative expressions using one or another of the causation verbsyabaia 'give',munaia 'make',swiaia 'let'. In these constructions, the verb of causation is subordinated to the verb of action. |
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To negate a verb, the invariable negative participle in-ras is used either alone or followed by an auxiliary specifying tense and person. |
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For the future tenses only, another option is to placeapia after the future verb form. |
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The second person imperative has its own special negative form, with the verbal suffix-para. |
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The verbkaia, having no negative participle, is negated by a preposedapia. |
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'Nothing', 'nobody' and so on are expressed using indefinite words, generally accompanied bysin 'also, even', usually in combination with negative verb forms. |
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The sentence-final particleki may, optionally, be used in either yes-no or wh-questions. |
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With or withoutki, in wh-questions the interrogative element either stands at the beginning of the question... |
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...or immediately precedes the verb. |
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Yâ 'who' as the agentive subject of a question may be followed by thebui marker (see above). |
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Indirect questions may be followed bysaba (orsapa). |
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In yes–no questions sentence-finalki is optional. Such questions may be answered withau 'yes' orapia 'no'. |
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Mood particles may be placed at the end of a sentence (i.e. following the verb). See the example ofki above. |
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There are two major constructions which may be used to formrelative clauses in Miskito, the 'external head' strategy and the 'internal head' strategy.
In the external head strategy there is no subordination marker of any kind and the relative clause precedes the head noun, which takes aligature, beside which it usually has an article too. |
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If the head is not expressed, an article following the relative clause serves to identify and delimit it. |
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In the internal head construction, the head noun is not extracted from the place it underlyingly occupies in the relative clause, which is bounded by an article as in headless external head clauses. |
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In the 'headless' counterpart of the internal construction, the place of the head within the relative clause is occupied by an interrogative pronoun. |
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A complement clause may bear no subordination marker but merely be followed by the articleba functioning in practice as anominalizer. |
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Indirect questions end insaba (i.e.sa 'is' +ba article). |
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The tense of complement clauses does not follow that of the matrix clause, but directly expresses a time relation in reference to the matrix. |
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Complement clauses that have no autonomous time reference ('irrealis') take Future II. |
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Conditional ('if') clauses addkaka and precede the consequence clause. (Kaka is the third-person different subject participle ofkaia 'be', literally "it being (the case that)".) |
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Concessive ('although') clauses may end insin 'also, either, even', or insakuna 'but'. |
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Circumstantial clauses generally end in a subordinating conjunction of some sort. Sometimes the articleba precedes the conjunction, which may take the form of a preposition... |
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a relational... |
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or a noun. |
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As regards origin, the Miskitolexicon consists of the following principal components:
Somederivational affixes:
| Affix | Function | Meaning | Examples |
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| -ira suffix | (1) adjectives from nouns (with ligature) | abundance |
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| (2) adjectives from nominalized adjectives in-(i)ka | superlative |
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| -s suffix | adjectives from nouns (with ligature) | privative, '-less' |
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| -(i)ka suffix | nouns from adjectives | abstract nouns, '-ness' (cf. ligature) |
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| -(i)ra suffix | nouns from adjectives | abstract nouns, '-ness' |
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| -aika suffix | nouns from verbs | (1) instrument |
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| (2) place |
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| -anka suffix | nouns from verbs | action (nominalized past participle) |
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| -ra suffix | nouns from verbs | action |
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| reduplication +-ra suffix | nouns from verbs | (1) agent, '-er' |
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| (2) undergoer |
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| -b- or-k- suffix | (1) verbs from verb roots | transitive verb |
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| (2) verbs from adjective roots |
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| -w- suffix | verbs | intransitive verb |
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| (2) verbs from adjective roots |
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| ai- prefix | intransitive verbs from transitives | reflexive or middle |
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Miskito has a large number oflight-verb constructions orcompound verbs which consist of two words but express meanings that are lexically determined for the construction as a whole, e.g. |
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A similar construction is used in verbs that areloans from English: the borrowedlexeme is aninvariable element (help, wark, want...) followed by a Miskito verb, e.g. |
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Nominal compounds are much less common. |
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The Miskitophoneme inventory includes four vowels (a, e, i, o, u)[clarification needed], apparently with phonemic length playing a part. Consonant series include voiced and voiceless plosives, voiced nasals and semivowels, two liquids and the fricatives. Orthographich apparently represents a suprasegmental feature.
Syllables consist of avowel nucleus preceded and followed by a maximum of twoconsonant: (C)(C)V(C)(C). Wordstress is normally on the first syllable and notdistinctive.
Inflectional and derivationalmorphology are of moderate complexity and predominantly suffixing, together with the use of infixes in the nominal paradigm.
Thenominal morphological categories areligature andperson (but notnumber) of thepossessor, the exponents of which have suffix and infix allophones, except for third person and first person inclusive possessor indices, which are preposedparticles. Plural number is indicated by a postpositive particle.
In theverbal morphology,tense,mood andperson (of thesubject) are marked bysuffixes (and sometimes fused intoportmanteau suffix forms).Object indices oftransitive verbs are represented by particles preceding the verb (third person is zero). Number is not marked in these subject and object indices, but a plural subject may be indicated through a verbal periphrasis serving this function.
| Word order |
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Sentence order is predominantly SOV. Auxiliaries follow main verbs. Sentence particles are sentence-final. Within thenoun phrase, mostdeterminers precede thehead, butarticles follow it, as doquantifiers.Adjectives may either precede or follow the head noun.Possessors precede possessed, andrelative clauses precede their head. The ligature morpheme generally occurs on the noun whenever this is preceded by one of the items mentioned, and also when it takes a possessive index.Postpositional structures are found.
| HEAD-marking constructions |
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Miskito is consistentlyhead-marking. There ispro-drop for both subject and object (i.e. subject and object pronouns are commonly omitted). The finite verb's subjectargument is indexed forperson (not fornumber) on the verb.Transitive verbs also index their object through pre-verbal particles (zero for third person). A maximum of one such object index is possible. If a transitive verb has both apatient and arecipient, the latter is not indexed and appears as a postpositional phrase (indirect object).
The expression of nominalpossessive orgenitive relations is similarly head-marking: the head (i.e. the possessed) is marked with indices indicating the person of the dependent (the possessor), the noun phrase expressing which is either omitted normally if pronominal (a pro-drop phenomenon) or precedes the head, e.g.arask-i 'my horse' (oryang arask-i),araska 'his horse' (zero-marked possessor),Juan araska 'Juan's horse' (cf.aras 'horse' without ligature).
Other relations between a verb and its noun phrase complements oradjuncts are expressed by means ofpostpositional structures orrelational constructions. Postpositions are invariable and follow the noun phrase, e.g.Nicaragua ra 'in/to Nicaragua'. A relational construction has the internal form of a possessive construction (above), except that the place of the head noun is occupied by a quasi-noun called a relational; the latter is often followed by a postpositon. E.g.nin-i-ra (oryang ninira) 'behind me',nina-ra (orwitin ninara) 'behind him',Juan nina-ra 'behind Juan', where the relationalnina imitates a possessed noun.
There is acopula with an irregular and defective conjugational paradigm.
Negation is achieved through various constructions. One is the use of the verb's negative participle, which is invariable for person and tense; another is through use of a negative particleapia which follows verbs (in the future only), but precedes the copula.Yes–no questions have no special grammatical marking as such, but all kinds of questions are optionally followed by the sentence particleki. Other sentence particles express different modal nuances.
Verbs or whole clauses may be conjoined byjuxtaposition, all but the last verb in the chain adopting the form of aswitch reference participle. These vary in form depending on whether the following verb has the same or a different subject, and also depending on certain tense or aspect relations, and on the person of the subject in the case of different-subject participles.
Besides these widely used constructions, clauses may also be linked by coordinatingconjunctions, andsubordinate clauses may be marked by a clause-finalsubordinator.
