A) Basic and Permuted Word Order
- Senoic sentences are prepositional and seem to fall into two basic types – process (active) and stative. In stative sentences, the predicate comes first:
| (1) | Mənūʔ | ʔəh (big, it) |
| VP | NP (Subject) | |
| It's big. | ||
- In process sentences, the subject normally comes first, with the object and all other complements following the verb:
| (2) | Cwəʔ | yəh- | mʔmus |
| NP (Subj) | P (Pfx) | V | |
| The dog growls. | |||
- In Jah Hut, all are complements, but the direct object require a preposition:
| (3) | ʔihãh | naʔ | cɔp | rap | tuy | han | bulus |
| NP (Subj) | Aux | V | N (Obj) | Det | Prep | Obj | |
| I | INTENT | stab | boar | that | with | spear | |
| I'll stab that boar with a spear | |||||||
- Relative clauses, similar verbal modifiers, possessives, demonstratives and attributive nouns follow their head-noun:
| (4) | ʔidɔh | pləʔ | kɔm | bɔʔ-caʔ | |
| NP (Subj) | N (H) | Aux | P (Pfx) V | ||
| this | fruit | can | 1p-pl, eat | ||
| This is a fruit which we can eat. | |||||
- The negative morpheme precedes the verb, though the personal prefix may intervene before the verb root:
| (5) | ʔe-loʔ | tɔʔ | ha-rɛɲrec | sej | mɛjmɛj | naʔ | |
| why | Neg | P (Pfx V | N (h) | NP (Obj) | Det | ||
| why | NEG | 2p-eat | meat | excellent | that | ||
| Why didn't you eat that excellent meat? | |||||||
Read more about this topic: Aslian Languages, Grammar
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