- Examples of sentence-level things in Lwaitel
: Word order
- I got the food.
-
Kú
kíku
múmwe.
[ˈku ˈkɨ.kʉ ˈmu.mwʊ̜̆]
kúI/me
kí-kuget-1
múmwe.food.
One of many possible word orders. In this particular sentence, the words can be rearranged to any order.
-
Kíku
múmwe.
[ˈki.kʉ ˈmu.mwʊ̜̆]
kí-kuget-1
múmwe.food.
The first-person pronoun kú is implied by the agreement suffix on the verb kí, so it can be omitted.
-
Kíku.
[ˈki.kʉ]
kí-ku.get-1.
If it's clear from context that we're talking about food, the object can be omitted altogether.
- Noun phrase examples in Lwaitel
: Definiteness
- I get some food.
-
Kíkushe
múmwe.
[ˈki.kʉ.ʃᵿ̜̆ ˈmu.mwʊ̜̆]
kí-ku-sheget-1-indf
múmwe.food.
- Noun phrase examples in Lwaitel
: Definiteness
- I didn't get any food.
-
1
Kíku
úni
múmwe.
[ˈki.kʉ ˈu.ɲɨ ˈmu.mwʊ̜̆]
kí-kuget-1
únineg
múmwe.food.
Úni mumwe is the noun phrase here; if úni was modifying the verb, it would be kíku úni nga mumwe.
- Noun phrase examples in Lwaitel
: Definiteness
- No one got this food.
- 1
Úni
íken
an
múmwe.
[ˈu.ɲɨ ˈi.kn̩ ˈan ˈmu.mwʊ̜̆]
únineg
ik-enget.inv-prox
anprox
múmwe.food.
- Noun phrase examples in Lwaitel
: Definiteness
- No one got any food.
- 1
Úni
íki
nga
múmwe.
[ˈu.ɲɨ ˈi.ki ˈŋɜ ˈmu.mwʊ̜̆]
únineg
ik-iget.inv-obv
ngaany
múmwe.food.
*Úni iki úni mumwe would be double negation, so nga is required here.