The Structure of Verb Forms
The verb is marked with prefixes in order to agree with the person and number of the subject and the object of the sentence; additionally, verbs inflect for tense and aspect. Here are three sentence types, each containing a single word: a nominal predicate, an intransitive sentence, and a transitive sentence. Reminder: in classical Nahuatl, the spelling 'h' at the end of a syllable indicates the glottal stop, not the sound of the 'h' in 'he'.
- ticihuātl, 'you (singular) are a woman' (sentence with a noun predicate cihuātl, 'woman')
- ticochi, 'you (singular) sleep' (sentence with an intransitive verb, -cochi, 'sleep')
- ticochih, 'we sleep' (sentence with an intransitive verb, -cochi, 'sleep')
- tiquimittah 'we see them' (sentence with a transitive verb, -itta-, 'see')
Caution: ti- means 'you (singular)' but ti-____-h means 'we'.
From these examples, it can be seen that the arrangement of a verb stem and its argument affixes is as follows:
SUBJECT PREFIX + OBJECT PREFIX + VERB STEM + 'h' (example: 'ti-quim-itta-h', we - them - see - we, i.e., 'we see them')
Read more about this topic: Classical Nahuatl Grammar, Morphology
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