Biloxi Language - Grammar - Morphology

Morphology

The three word classes in Biloxi are verbs, substantives (nouns and pronouns), and particles. The first two take affixes, while the last cannot.

Verbs are always marked for person and number, and may also take dative, reciprocal, reflexive, and/or instrumental markers, as well as mode markers, the object specifier, and auxiliaries. They occur finally or penultimately in clauses.

All nominal affixes may also be used with verbs; however, nouns may be defined as the set of words which may only use a subset of the verbal affixes. They may not use dative, reciprocal, reflexive, or instrumental markers, nor mode markers or auxiliaries.

Particles serve many functions including noun phrase marking and acting as adverbials.

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