| Tokodede |
TRANSLATION 2: SYNTAX
| Word Order: SVO |
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| anan-vine iso a'a dosi iso |
| girl one eat cake one |
| free translation: The girl ate the cake |
| Noun Phrase: N (Adjective) (Article) (note: the adjective is attached to the noun) |
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| mane.sonotor iso |
| man.handsome one |
| the handsome man |
| Verb Phrase: Verb (Adverb) (Noun) (article) |
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| a'a biu dosi |
| eat quickly cake |
| eat a cake quickly |
| Prepositional Phrase: Verb Preposition NP |
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| la le dapur |
| go to kitchen |
| go to the kitchen |
| Yes/No Questions: Same form as affirmative sentence-change the intonation |
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| ko a'a dosi se |
| you eat cake PERF |
| did you eat the cake? |
| Content Questions: Question word is placed where the missing information would be in the affirmative sentence. |
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| senita a'a dosi |
| who eat cake |
| who ate the cake? |
| Agreement Markers: no verbal agreement, no adjective agreement | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Marker | What does it mark? | Meaning | Example |
| iso ~ nor seri |
determiner determiner |
the (singular ~ plural) some (of a group) |
ananvine iso a'a dosi iso girl one eat cake one the girl ate the cake ananvine nor a'a dosi nor girl many eat cake many the girls ate the some cakes |
| Case Markers: Case System is unclear. We are still working on it. |
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© Language Documentation Center, University of Hawai'i at Manoa 2005