See sentences. Asterisks (*) mark examples of things that are incorrect.
One of many possible word orders. In this particular sentence, the words can be rearranged to any order.
The first-person pronoun kú is implied by the agreement suffix on the verb kí, so it can be omitted.
If it's clear from context that we're talking about food, the object can be omitted altogether.
One possible word order (and the most likely).
The other possible word order.
This is not allowed because swan swatel ("is black") is considered one phrase, and can't be split apart by a noun. (It can, however, be split apart by an adverb.)
This isn't allowed, because an myau is a noun phrase, and therefore can't be split up. (Well, in this case, it has a different but similar meaning: "This is a black cat".)
An explicit separate clause as an argument to maus "say".
The clause is an argument like any other, and therefore can go in different positions in the sentence.
For the verbs lú "see", maus "say", tap "use", and tyus "make", having an explicit marker for the clause is optional (but can be included to prevent ambiguity).
For the verbs mentioned previously, the verb and (in the case of maus and tyus) its subject can be mixed freely with the words in the dependent clause.
...although rules about splitting apart phrases still apply.
Mu is basically a verbal quotation mark, and replaces the particle hem.
Another verb that takes a clause as an argument. Roughly translates to "I tried that I talked".
Omitting the particle hem only works for the verbs lú, maus, tyus, and tap.
Haupi lun is a noun meaning "the place where I saw it". (Lun is "I saw it".)
"Pe piki" is "at the time when..."
"Piki lun" is a noun phrase, not an adverbial phrase. It could be the subject or object of a sentence, but to get the meaning desired for this sentence, it needs to be the object of a preposition.
This might make sense, but since it's talking specifically about time, pe piki would probably be used instead.
Straightforward conditional clause.
Different word orders are allowed.
The clause can go anywhere in the sentence that's not inside another phrase.
Ulsi umpikwa introduces a counterfactual conditional. Both clauses of counterfactual conditionals use the subjunctive mood.
The condition, swa-n pikuni hupep, is actually the question "Is this a dog?".
This works for non-polar questions as well.
A yes/no question is indicated by adding the adverb pikuni.
Answering "no" to that question might imply that one is still beating one's wife. To signal that that implication is wrong, úni is preceded by twak (indicating that something the sentence might imply is wrong); details are given at the end, after the conjunction útwek "but".