Miyako/Grammar
Contents
Parts of Speech
Ikema has nouns, verbs, adnominals, adverbs, conjunctions, and interjections. Also postpositions and final particles.
Grammar Points
List of postpositions
Romaji | Hiragana | Function | Tag |
---|---|---|---|
a | あ | topic 1 | <top1> |
ga | が | genitive and nominative | <gen> and <nom> |
nu | ぬ | genitive and nominative | <gen> and <nom> |
u | う | accusative 1 | <acc1> |
a | あ | accusative 2 | <acc2> |
du | どぅ | focus | <foc> |
n | ん | dative | <dat> |
ti | てぃ | quotative | <quot> |
nkai | んかい | allative 1 | <all1> |
nki | んき | allative 2 | <all2> |
taahii | たーひー | limitative | <lim> |
kara | から | ablative | <abl> |
hii | ひー | instrumental | <ins> |
tu | とぅ | comitative | <com> |
ncɨkyaa | んつきゃー | comparative | <comp> |
List of final particles
Romaji | Hiragana | Function |
---|---|---|
doo | ||
i | い | |
na | な | Y/N question |
ga | が | Wh question |
da | だ | how about ~? |
Noun suffixes
Romaji | HIragana | Function | Tag | Example |
---|---|---|---|---|
gama | がま | Diminutive | <dim> | とぅい<n><dim> ↔ とぅいがま |
mmi | っみ | Plural 1 | <pl1> | やらび<n><dim> ↔ やらびっみ |
ta | た | Plural 2 | <pl2> | みどぅん<n><dim> ↔ みどぅんた |
nagi | なぎ | Approximative | <app> |
kya as pl3 in Pear Story but not in table
Note: in the Introduction to Ryukyuan PDF, っみ is listed as pl1 in the table of suffices, but then is glossed as pl2 in the pear story.
shimagama, ffagama, pushigama (island, child, star) hitummi and banammi (people and flowers) from the Russian one
Adjectival stems
Adjectives cannot stand on their own, but adjectival stems (or property concepts) can be used to form nouns, verbs, and adverbs. Adjectival stems and nouns are compounded and verbs and adverbs are made with affixes.
Noun examples:
- small + child = small child
いみ + っふぁ = いみっふぁ
- black + goat = black goat
っふがら + ひんじゃ = っふがらひんじゃ
- expensive + fish = expensive fish
たかだい + っぞぅ = たかだいっぞぅ
The suffix -むぬ can be added to an adjective stem to nominalise it.
- かぎ<n><nz> ↔ かぎむぬ (beautiful thing)
- じゃう<n><nz> ↔ じゃうむぬ (good thing)
- かさます<n><nz> ↔ かさますむぬ (frustrating thing)
Pronouns
Romaji | HIragana | Function | Tag | |
---|---|---|---|---|
ba | ば | 1 Sg | <p1><sg> | |
vva | っヴぁ | 2 Sg | <p2><sg> | |
ura | うら | 3 Sg inanimate | <p3><sg><nn> | |
kai | かい | 3 Sg animate | <p3><sg><aa> | |
karaa | からー | 3 Sg animate top | <p3><sg><aa><top> | |
karuu | かるー | 3 Sg animate acc | <p3><sg><aa><acc> | |
banchaa | ばんちゃー | 1 Pl animate | <p1><pl><aa> |
Other things
Ikema does not have productive reduplication, unlike other Miyako dialects
use the cases for the postpositions and mod for sentence final particles
Classifiers