I'm reading slowly through the preview of The Navajo Verb on Google Book and thought I'd make a few notes. This is all from Chapter 2--basic analysis of the Navajo verb (some of this is obvious if you know a little a Navajo but it's worth spelling out):
- Navajo verbs are more complex than English verbs, as they simply do not indicate type of action and when the action happens, but can also indicate subject, number of subjects, number of times the action is done and various other information about the action
- Navajo verbs are based on a stem or root, but do not have suffixes like in English, but rather prefixes
- With the exception of few verb form (namely, irregular ones), all Navajo verbs will have at least one prefix. It is important to remember that because of this, the verb stem alone does not consistute a word, only a stem of a word. This is very different from how we view verbs in English.
- Most Navajo verb stems consist of a single syllable, and will always start with a consonant, making them easy to identify
- Navajo verbs will be comprised of a
verb base, which is either the stem or the stem plus a prefix that fully define the type of action being done. The book give the example for "to play":
Bill naané (Bill is playing) -
Naashné (I'm playing) -
Naohné (you two are playing)
Here the stem
-né is always seen with
na-, with another prefix inbetween providing additional information. The stem
-né and prefix
na- together make the
verb base that indicates the action "am/is/are playing".
N.B.: Not all Navajo verbs will have a verb base that is both a stem and a prefix. Sometimes they will only be a stem. Sometimes, also, they can have more than one prefix in the verb base.
- The two primary things that prefixes need to provide are who is doing the action and when does the action occur. Additional information may be provided but these are the primary things.
- Navajo verbs, like in English and many other languages, can be seperated into transitive and intransitive groups. Intransive verbs will have subject prefixes, while transitive verbs will have both subject and object prefixes. (This will be further addressed later in the book)
- Prefixes can be divided into a pattern of "outer" and "inner" prefixes. Outer prefixes, which are prefixes that help form the verb base, will come first and have a certain arrangment when there are more than one. Inner prefixes will come between the outer prefixes (if there are any outer prefixes) and teh stem, and these too have an arrangment they follow. Something called a
classifier, which will be explained later in the book, can sometimes follow all prefixes and immediately preceed the stem.
- In intransitive verbs, the object prefix will be after the outer prefixes but preceed the subject prefixes.
- In this book, prefixes which will indicate subject, object and distributive plural are called
inflectional preflexes.The term
lexical prefixes is used for thse outer prefixes that are part of the verb base plus other prefixes that are not inflectional. Lexical prefixes can only be at the beginning of the verb or inbetween the "outer" and "inner" prefixes. (Explained further later on in the book)
- When prefixes are put together, certain adjustments may bemade in the pronunciation. There are rules for this, to be explained later in the book.
There is alittle bit more in Chapter 2, but I'm stopping now becuase I'm getting too tired to think about grammar.
Hágoónee'
United States (United States)
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