Little Words in Different Places |
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Articles | |||||||
| In English, the article always precedes its noun. In Seri, spoken in the State of Sonora, the article follows its noun. | ||||||||
| SUBJECT | OBJECT | VERB | ||||||
| SERI: |
Ctam
man |
cop
the |
haaco
house |
cop
the |
imahooxp.
white-washed |
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| = The man white-washed the house. | ||||||||
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Prepositions and Postpositions |
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| English has prepositions like of, to, in, and under. They are called PREPOSITIONS because they precede the other words in their group. In English, we say | ||||||||
| of John to the city in the basket under the table | ||||||||
| Rather than prepositions, some languages of Mexico have postpositions which follow the other words in their group. Huichol and Seri both have postpositions rather than prepositions. | ||||||||
| HUICHOL: |
mexa
table |
tüa
under |
= ‘under the table’ |
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| SERI: | haaco | cop | ano | |||||
| house | the | in | = ‘in the house’ | |||||
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© 2010 Instituto
Lingüístico de Verano, A.C. |
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