Izi Language - Morphology and Syntax

Morphology and Syntax

Izi is a fairly isolating language, and it has equal suffixing and prefixing, as in the following example.

Instead of the morphemes all combining to form one sentence, each morpheme in this sentence is disconnected to suggest that Izi is an isolating language. This sentence also reveals that the word order of this language is subject–verb–object (SVO). This is seen in the phrase meaning ‘it is people,’ where ‘it’ is the subject, ‘is’ is the verb, and ‘people’ is the object. Another feature illustrated by this sentence is the order of nouns and genitives, and nouns and demonstratives. These structures are head-initial, where the noun head comes before both the genitive and the demonstrative. For instance, in this sentence, ‘village’ appears before the genitive pronoun ‘our,’ and ‘meeting’ appears before the demonstrative ‘that.’ Adjectives can occur before or after the noun; however the adjective-noun order is preferred. The order of the adposition in relation to the order of the object and verb is typical. One would expect prepositions in a language where the verb is placed before the object, and Izi lives up to this expectation. The following shows this preposition-object relationship: