Skip to content

Miskito

Language
Miskito

Family
Misumalpan

Ethnologue

ISO

glottolog_id

Nouns table

Verbs table

Miskito notes

Noun

  • The form labelled 'construct' here is used, among other things, when the noun is modified, as in the following contexts using the construct form araska 'horse' (Salamanca 1988: 154):

    • balan araska ba 'came horse the' = 'the horse that came'
    • baha araska 'this horse'
  • The default construct form involves suffixation of -ka. If the stem ends in -a, this is deleted, and if this in turn is preceded by a consonant cluster, an epenthetic /i/ is added (Salamanca 1988: 156): batana ~ batan-ka 'grease', kipla ~ kipli-ka 'rock'.

    Some nouns have unsuffixed construct forms, or have a different suffix. For some nouns there is a stem alternations, typically infixation of -a-.

  • The construct is also used as the base for possessed forms, with a 1st person marker /i/ and a 2nd person marker /m/. These are infixed or suffixed according to the phonological structure of the stem (Salamanca 1988: 161f):

    • If the stem vowel is non-high, /i/ and /m/ are infixed: na<i>pa 'my tooth' vs. pus-i 'my lung'.
    • But if the stem contains a consonant cluster where the introduction of /m/ would yield an illicit syllable type, it is suffixed: ka<i>rma 'my throat' vs. karma-m 'your throat' (because *ka<m>rma cannot be syllabified).
    • (There is at least one exception in Salamanca's material (p. 174): bla 'nausea' ~ bla<i>ka 'my nausea' ~ bla-ka-m 'your nausea', not *bla<m>ka.)

Verb

  • The different subject virtual form -- or 'conexivo' in Salmanca's text -- is used for switch reference in future or irrealis contexts, e.g. (p. 347):
    Maria bal-ka yang w-amna
    M. come.diff.sbj.virt I come-1.fut
    ‘When Maria comes I’ll go.’
  • Verbs whose stems end in /b/ delete this before C-initial suffixes, except where C=/r/ (p. 136).
  • Play' and 'put' represent the basic types; 'come' is irregular.

References

Salamanca, Danilo. 1988. Elementos de gramática del miskito. PhD thesis, MIT.