Book:Mk'anbu mruk'í Mák’ai-wawá! - Chapter 3

Ít̗ák and welcome to the third chapter of Mk'anbu mruk'í Mák’ai-wawá! In this chapter, we'll continue learning some more conversational basics of Mák’ai-wa, as well as learning how to express locations and directions. By the end of this chapter you should be able to hold a basic conversation in Mák’ai-wa, as well as express where you are going and where things are located. Let's get started!

Key concepts in this lesson:

• Conversation basics.
• More verb basics.
• Accusative case for direct objects.
• Accusative case for movement/direction.
• The nominal classifiers d̗a and ngu.

Dialogue: Liwu and Mar̗uk

Each chapter of this textbook will begin with a dialogue that introduces basic grammatical concepts for that chapter. First read through the dialogue and listen to the recording. Then, go through the hyperlinked notes to read any explanations of the language used. Key vocabulary is also included at the end.

Mar̗uk: Ít̗ák Liwu! Ganái yuru?

Liwu: Ít̗ák Mar̗uk! Ganái ján̗kái, kayí. W ganái?

Mar̗uk: Ján̗kái úgu, kayí. Áyága ngírun r̗úk t̗ayík?

Liwu: Áyága ngan yí wulung-d̗ak.

Mar̗uk: Ngírun n̗ígu t̗ayík?

Liwu: Ngarun n̗ígu k'igá-ngut̗ak

Mar̗uk: Áwu! T̗ákí!

Liwu: T̗ákí!

Key vocabulary:

• Ganái yuru? - 'how are you?'
• Ganái ján̗kái (or ján̗kái) - 'fine', 'good' (in response to Ganái yuru?)
• Kayí - 'thanks', 'thank you'
• W - 'and'
• Áyága - 'today'
• R̗úk - 'to do'
• T̗ayík - 'what' (acc.)
• Yí - 'to go'
• Wulung - 'shop', 'store', 'shops'
• N̗ígu - 'to buy', 'to purchase'
• K'igá - 'book'
• Áwu - 'good', 'nice', 'sounds good'

Grammar

1. Verb basics continued

In this chapter, we're going to build on the verb basics we learned earlier to start building some more complex sentences. So far, you've learned how to build what's called the auxiliary verb in Mák’ai-wa. These were the ngan, ngán, nun, ngín, and lain forms you learned in Chapter 2. All of these forms have the basic meaning 'to be', as in 'I am', 'you are', and so on. But what if you want to say something like "I buy" or "I go" instead of "I am"? In Mák’ai-wa, the answer is pretty simple - you just add the verb meaning 'buy' or 'go' to the end, after the auxiliary verb. Here's an example:

• Ngan málik'ai-pa - 'I (Ngárduk) am a student'.
• Ngan yí wulung-d̗ak - 'I (Ngárduk) go to the shop'.
• Nun tjún̗ák-ja - 'I (T̗'úkai) am a teacher'.
• Nurun n̗ígu k'igá-ngut̗ak - 'I T̗'úkai buy a book'.

You may have noticed another change in the auxiliary verbs above - in the last sentence, nun has changed to nurun. Why is that?

The auxiliary verb in Mák’ai actually consists of several parts arranged in a string. So far, the verbs we've used have only consisted of two parts. The first part is the form that represents the subject, which you can think of as the thing that does the verb, or comes first in an English sentence. The second part is the ending -n, which marks present tense. We'll not focus on the -n at the moment and come back to it in a future chapter.

Now, why is this important to know? In this chapter, we're going to start building some more complicated sentences that include an object, which is the thing that the verb is done to, or the thing that typically comes after the verb in English. We'll do some practice identifying subjects and objects in a bit. For now, know that the structure of the auxiliary verb is subject - object - tense. In this chapter, we're going to introduce three object forms - 'him/her', singular 'they', and 'it'. This means our verbs will look like this:

Subject	Object	Tense
nga ('I', Ngárduk) ngá ('I', Márduk) nu ('I', T̗'úkai) ngí ('you', Ngárduk or Márduk) lai ('you', T̗'úkai)	k'u ('he', Ngárduk, or 'her', Márduk) k'ulu ('they (sg.)', T̗'úkai) ru ('it')	n (present)

So, the reason why sentence four uses nurun n̗ígu instead of nun n̗ígu is because it's not 'I buy' but 'I buy a book'. The ru means that you buy something, not just buy in general.

Okay, now that we understand how this works in theory, let's take a step back and get on top of what an 'object' and a 'subject' are:

Exercise 3.1: Try identifying the subject and the object in each of the following English sentences. Remember, the subject is usually the thing that does the verb and often comes first in a sentence. The object is usually the thing that the verb is done to and often comes after the verb in a sentence. Hint: the sentences may not always have an object. (click here for the answers).

A) 'I see the cat'.

B) 'you are a doctor'.

C) 'she buys the pretty coat'.

D) 'those teachers love action movies'.

E) 'I am going to sleep now'.

F) 'the children fought each other'.

G) 'my mother will bake the birthday cake'.

H) 'that young girl went to the shop'.

Great, now that you have an understanding of what subjects and objects are, let's have some practice building auxiliary verbs! At this stage, we'll focus only on the verbs, as there are a few more things you need to know before building full sentences that we'll cover later in this chapter.

Exercise 3.2: Try to form the correct auxiliary + main verb constructions for each of these sentences. Note: you DO NOT have to translate anything except the verbs, we'll come back to translating the rest of the sentence later. Remember to include both the auxiliary AND the main verb (click here for the answers).

A) 'you (Ngárduk) buy a book'.

B) 'I (T̗'úkai) see the shop' (see = palí).

C) 'you (T̗'úkai) go to the shop'.

D) 'I (Márduk) am a teacher'.

E) 'I (Ngárduk) buy a magazine'.

F) 'you (Márduk) see the book.

G) 'you (Márduk) see them (T̗'úkai)'.

H) 'I (T̗'úkai) see him (Ngárduk)'.

I) 'I (Ngárduk) see her (Márduk).

J) 'you (T̗'úkai) see her (Márduk).

K) 'you (Márduk) see him (Ngárduk)

L) 'I (Márduk) see them (T̗'úkai)

Good job! Now, before we go on to translating other parts of the sentence, we have to introduce two new noun classifiers: -d̗a and -ngu.

2. -d̗a and -ngu

We use the noun classifier -d̗a for physical locations, like a hotel.

We use the noun classifier -ngu for generic objects, like books.

We already learned three nominal classifiers in the previous chapter - -pa, for Ngárduk individuals, -yu, for Márduk individuals, and -ja, for T̗'úkai individuals. In this chapter, we're going to learn two more:

• -d̗a is used for times and places. In this chapter, we're going to use it to refer to physical locations, like a shop or hotel.
• -ngu is the generic nominal classifier, it's used for things that don't fit into any of the other categories. In this chapter, we're going to use -ngu to refer to most things that you might buy in a shop, like a book or a souvenir.

To get used to these new nominal classifiers, and to learn some new vocabulary, have a go at this exercise!

Exercise 3.3: Decide which of the five nominal classifiers you've learned so far - -pa, -yu, -ja, -d̗a, or -ngu - go with each of these nouns (click here for the answers).

A) wulung ('shop')

B) k'íga ('book')

C) máwulungk'ai ('shopkeeper' - Hint: more than one classifier may be possible here).

D) jak'ígara ('magazine').

E) patjírálang ('souvenir').

F) úwái ('painting').

G) wupatjí ('hotel').

H) ḿt̗atáng ('post office').

Great! Now that you've gotten used to these new classifiers, let's move on to the next part of the chapter - case!

3. The accusative case

Mák’ai has something called case. This means that the forms of nouns change depending on their role in the sentence (for example, if they are the subject or the object). We have this in English for some pronouns, but most of the time it makes no difference if a word is the subject or the object, as in the following example:

the student saw the teacher (subject)

the teacher saw the student (object)

I saw the teacher (subject)

the teacher saw me (object)

We can see that English has case for pronouns - "I" and "me" mean the same thing, but one is for the subject and another for the object. For nouns, however, there's no difference depending on if the noun is the subject or object. This isn't the case in Mák’ai, where the two versions of 'the student' above would be different. You can see this in the following examples, which are translations of the first two English sentences above:

nguk'un palí málík'ai-pa tjún̗ák-pak (subject)

nguk'un palí tjún̗ák-pa málík'ai-pak (object)

In total, Mák’ai has 7-8 cases which are all used for different things. We've actually learned one of the cases already - the nominative case - in chapter 2. This is the form we use for subjects. In this chapter, we're going to learn another case - the accusative case. This is the form we use for objects, and for movement (more on this later).

Remember the nominal classifiers -pa, -yu, and -ja, as well as -d̗a and -ngu above? These are the parts of the sentence that change depending on case, like we saw in the example above where -pa changed to -pak. To turn a nominative (subject) form of a classifier into its accusative (object) form, you usually just add 'k' to the end (except for -ngu, where you add 't̗ak'). This means our classifiers now have the following forms:

Classifier:	Subject form (nominative):	Object form (accusative):
Ngárduk	-pa	-pak
Márduk	-yu	-yuk
T̗'úkai	-ja	-jak
Location	-d̗a	-d̗ak
General	-ngu	-ngut̗ak

Sidenote! You may have noticed that the accusative forms -pak, -yuk, and -jak are what you use in the expression 'my name is' (míka [name]-pak/-yuk/-jak), from chapter 2. This is because this expression comes from the longer expression tángungakun míka [name]-pak/-yuk/-jak, which means 'they call me [name]'. In this case, the name is the object of the sentence, which is why it uses the accusative case!

Now let's look at a few examples to see how this works:

ngán málík'ai-yu - I (Márduk) am a student

ngák'un palí málík'ai-yuk - I (Márduk) see a student (Márduk)

Notice two things - firstly, that we add the extra object marker k'u in the auxiliary verb, and that we use the accusative -yuk on málík'ai because it is now the object of the sentence. In the first sentence, because málík'ai is the subject, we just use the nominative -yu form. Here's another example:

nun mát̗'íník'ai-ja - I (T̗'úkai) am a painter

nuk'ulun palí mát̗'íník'ai-jak - I (T̗'úkai) see a painter (T̗'úkai)

Again, notice how we add the extra object marker k'ulu to the auxiliary verb, and that we use the accusative -jak on mát̗'íník'ai because it is now the object of the sentence. Again, in the first sentence, we just use the nominative -ja form because mát̗'íník'ai is the subject.

Let's try practicing this now!

Exercise 3.4: Try to translate the following English sentences into Mák’ai. Remember to include all the necessary verb components as well! (click here for the answers).

A) 'you (Ngárduk) see the book'.

B) 'I (T̗'úkai) see the post office'.

C) 'you (Márduk) see a souvenir'.

D) 'I (Ngárduk) sees the magazine'.

E) 'I (Márduk) sees the shop'.

F) 'you (T̗'úkai) sees the hotel'.

G) 'you (Ngárduk) see the painter (T̗'úkai)'.

H) 'I (T̗'úkai) see the teacher (Márduk)'.

I) 'you (Márduk) see the shopkeeper (Ngárduk)'.

J) 'I (Ngárduk) sees the student (Márduk)'.

K) 'I (Márduk) sees the teacher (Ngárduk)'.

L) 'you (T̗'úkai) sees the shopkeeper (T̗'úkai)'.

4. Describing movement

As well as being used for the object, the accusative case has another function in Mák’ai - to show movement or direction. Let's explain this using an example:

ngan yí wulung-d̗ak - I am going to the shop.

nun yí ḿt̗atáng-d̗ak - I am going to the post office.

You can see that in English we use the word 'to' to describe movement towards a certain place. We don't need to do this in Mák’ai, instead you can just use the accusative case! Note that this case is only used for movement towards a certain place - so if you want to say 'I am at the shop', rather than 'I am going to the shop', you'll have to use a different construction, which we'll learn about in a future chapter.

Let's try practicing this now!

Exercise 3.5: Try to translate the following English sentences into Mák’ai! (click here for the answers).

A) 'you (Ngárduk) are going to the hotel'.

B) 'I (T̗'úkai) am going to the shop today'.

C) 'you (Márduk) are going to the post office'.

D) 'I (Ngárduk) am going to the bank'. (bank = muwái)

E) 'I (Márduk) am going to Imisquun today'. (Imisquun = Imík'un)

F) 'you (T̗'úkai) are going to Akyáz'. (Akyáz = Ákai)

And now try translating the following sentences into English:

G) ngan yí wulung-d̗ak

H) nun yí ḿt̗atáng-d̗ak

I) áyága lain yí wupatjí-d̗ak

J) ngín yí muwái-d̗ak

Summary

Congratulations! You've now finished the content for chapter 3! Let's summarise what we learned:

• You should now be able to use a few more conversation basics, including asking someone how they are and what they are up to.
• You should now be able to form more complex sentences, which include both a subject and an object.
• You should now be able to describe 'going' somewhere.
• You should now be able to use the accusative case.
• You should now be able to use the nominal classifiers -d̗a and -ngu.

Have a go at the last few exercises to cement your knowledge, and then move on to chapter 4 when you're done!

Exercises

Exercise 3.6: Try translating the dialogue at the start of this chapter into English. Click here for the answer.

Exercise 3.7: Try writing your own dialogue similar to the one at the start of this chapter, but using different vocabulary. If you can, practice reading out the dialogue with a partner and get your teacher to check it for you.

Exercise 3.8: Try to translate the following sentences (click here for the answers).

A) 'today I (Ngárduk) am going to the post office.'

B) 'do you (T̗'úkai) see the teacher (Ngárduk)?'

C) 'what are you (Márduk) doing today?'

D) 'I (Márduk) am buying a magazine.'

E) 'how are you (Ngárduk) today?'

F) 'do you (Ngárduk) go to the hotel?'

G) 'thanks, I (T̗'úkai) am buying a souvenir.'

H) 'Hello, what are you (T̗'úkai) buying today?'

I) 'I (Márduk) am going to the bank.'

J) 'Hello, are you (Márduk) going to the post office?'

K) 'I (Ngárduk) am seeing the student (T̗'úkai) today.

Exercise 3.9 - Speaking practice! Listen to the following recordings and write down or say how you would respond to them in Mák’ai-wa. Click here for suggested answers.

A)

B)

C)

D)

E)

F)

Vocabulary

Objects:

• jak'ígara = 'magazine'
• k'íga = 'book'
• patjírálang = 'souvenir'
• úwái = 'painting'

Places and locations:

• Ákai = 'Akyáz'
• Imík'un = 'Imisquun'
• ḿt̗atáng = 'post office'
• muwái = 'bank' (financial institution)
• wulung = 'shop'
• wupatjí = 'hotel'

Verbs:

• n̗ígu = 'to buy'
• palí = 'to see', 'to look at'
• r̗úk = 'to do'
• yí = 'to go'

Expressions:

• ganái yuru? = 'how are you?'
• ganái ján̗kái (or ján̗kái) = 'fine', 'good' (in response to Ganái yuru?)
• kayí = 'thanks', 'thank you'

Other:

• áwu = 'nice', 'good', 'okay'
• áyága = 'today'
• máwulungk'ai = 'shopkeeper'
• t̗ayík = 'what'
• w = 'and'

Noun classifiers:

• pa/pak = Ngárduk
• yu/yuk = Márduk
• ja/jak = T̗'úkai
• d̗a/d̗ak = 'locations'
• ngu/ngut̗ak = 'objects', 'generics'

Auxiliary verb forms:

Subject	Object	Tense
nga ('I', Ngárduk) ngá ('I', Márduk) nu ('I', T̗'úkai) ngí ('you', Ngárduk or Márduk) lai ('you', T̗'úkai)	k'u ('he', Ngárduk, or 'her', Márduk) k'ulu ('they (sg.)', T̗'úkai) ru ('it')	n (present)

Click here for the previous chapter. Click here for the next chapter!