Grammatical/linguistic terms explanation

Term	Definition
absolute	The absolute refers to the form of a Umatilla family member term that you use when that person is the subject of a sentence (i.e. they are the one doing an action).
adjective	An adjective is a word for describing a noun (a thing). These are words like good, bad, blue, small, fast, or pretty. You can use them to modify a noun directly: “the good dog”, “the blue house” or you can use them in sentences, like “the fawn is small”, “the car is fast”, “the flower is pretty”.
adverb	An adverb is a bit like an adjective in that it is for description. However, adverbs describe actions. In English, they frequently end in -ly. (“The horse runs quickly.”) In Umatilla, there is no difference in form between adjectives and adverbs.
aspect	Aspect refers to how an action occurs over time. The two aspects in Umatilla are continuous (ongoing) with -ša and habitual (regularly occurring) with -x̣a.
cislocative	The cislocative is a set of verb suffixes that indicate that the action is occuring towards the speaker.
concord	Concord is a state of agreement between two words, such as when they both share the same suffix or postposition. Umatilla shows postposition concord between nouns and adjectives that modify them.
conditional	The conditional is a verb form in Umatilla that is used to express something that has not happened, but could. It is expressed in English as would, could, should, or can.
consonant	A consonant is a sound that is not a vowel. In Umatilla, the consonants are (in alphabetical order): ˀ, c, c̓, č, č̓, h, k, k̓, kʷ, k̓ʷ, l, ł, m, n, p, p̓, q, q̓, qʷ, q̓ʷ, s, š, t, t̓, ƛ, ƛ̓, w, x, x̣, xʷ, x̣ʷ, and y. These are sounds that are made by completely or partially blocking airflow with a part of your mouth.
continuous	The continuous is a verb form in Umatilla. It is used to indicate that an action is ongoing. In Umatilla, this is the -ša form. In English, this is usually expressed with the -ing ending. This can be used in combination with different tenses, such as the present (“I am doing”), future (“I will be doing”) or past (“I was doing”).
derivation	Derivation is the process of forming new words by adding prefixes or suffixes to a word that change its meaning or its grammatical category (part of speech).
diacritic	A diacritic is a mark that appears on a letter. The apostrophe for ejective or popping sounds is one, the hachek is another.
dictionary form	The dictionary form is the form in which a verb appears in the dictionary. This includes a final -n which is removed in cerrtain inflected verb forms.
diphthong	A diphthong is a complex vowel sound made of a vowel (a, i, u) plus a glide (y or w).
enclitic	An enclitic is like a suffix in that it attaches to other words. However, enclitics are not particular about the category of words they will attach to. Enclitics in Umatilla include the second-position enclitics, like -naš and -nam.
first person	The first person refers to the forms used when the speaker is refering to him- or herself or -selves. Some examples in English of first person singular forms are “I”, “my”, “me”, “mine”. First-person can also be plural, such as “we”, “our”, and “ours.”
flexible word order	Flexible word order refers to the relative freedom you have in Umatilla to arrange words in a sentence. The nuance will shift a little (words near the front of the sentence are considered a bit more emphasized) but the overall meaning remains the same.
future	The future is a verb tense. In Umatilla, it is the “-ta” form of the verb. It is used to express actions or states which have not yet occurred, but will occcur later on.
genitive	The genitive is a way to express possession. In English this can be done either with “‘s”, like “the flower’s stem” or with ‘of’, like “the stem of the flower”. In Umatilla, this is expressed with the suffix -(n)mí.
habitual	The habitual is a verb form in Umatilla that does not exist in English. It is used to express actions that occur again and again, regularly. In English, we can express this with the word “usually”. We might say “I usually wake up at 8 a.m.” In Umatilla, this would be expressed with the habitual (-x̣a) form of the verb.
hiatus	Hiatus refers to two vowels coming together without a consonant (or glide) between them. Many languages, including Umatilla, try to avoid this. In Umatilla, hiatus is generally resolved by inserting a glottal stop, ˀ, between the vowels.
indefinite pronouns	Indefinite pronouns are words like anywhere, anyone, someone, nowhere, no one, and so on. Umatilla uses question words to form these.
independent pronoun	Independent pronouns in Umatilla can appear anywhere in the sentence (not just the second position). These are, for example, ín, ím, and pɨ́n.
inflection	Inflection is the process of adding prefixes and suffixes to a word to give it the appropriate form for its use in a sentence. The basic meaning of the word and its part of speech do not change.
interrogative pronoun	Interrogative pronouns refer to question words, such as who, what, or when.
intransitive	A verb is intrnsitive if it only allows someone to do something, but not to do something to someone or something else. This is indicated with the abbreviation vi. in the Umatilla Dictionary. All the verbs introduced in this textbook are intransitive.
irregular	A word is considered irregular if it does not follow the usual rules to make a particular form. For example, the past tense of wá is wačá. This is irregular.
maternal	The word maternal means ‘relating to the mother’. In family terms, this means a relative you are related to through your mother. Your maternal aunt is your mother’s sister.
mood	Mood is a category of verb suffixes, like tense and aspect, that allow speakers to express their attitute towards an action. The conditional -tax̣na is a mood, as are the direct command forms and the -t̓at̓a- ‘to want to’ suffix.
noun	A noun is typically defined as “a person, place, or thing”. The “thing” part of this definition can be concrete, like “rocks” or abstract, like “freedom”. In English, nouns can be used with “a” or “the”, such as “a tiger” or “the beauty”.
orthography	Orthography refers to writing sytems and spelling.
part of speech	This refers to what role a word plays in grammar. Examples of parts of speech include nouns, adjectives, verbs and pronouns.
past	The past is a verb tense. There are two different past tenses in Umatilla, but the one taught in this textbook is the “-na” form. This is used for actions which occurred at some point before the present time.
paternal	The word paternal means ‘relating to the father’. In family terms, this means a relative you are related to through your father. Your paternal grandmother is your father’s mother.
plural	Plural refers to there being more than one of something. In Umatilla, this is not obligatory, but you can use the plural suffix -ma on animals or people. Verbs with a third-person plural subject take the prefix pa-.
plural	The plural refers to having more than one of something. In English, the plural form of a noun is often an -s at the end of the word. In Umatilla (for people and animals) this is the -ma suffix. Verbs and pronouns can also take different forms for the plural. E.g. “I” is singular, but “we” is plural”.
possessive pronoun	Possessive pronouns are words like “my”, “your”, and “his/hers/its”, as well as “mine”, “yours”, and “his/hers”.
postposition	In English, we use prepositions to express things like direction or location: “to”, “from”, “along”, “at”. In Umatilla, these are expressed with postpositions (which are called this because they follow the word they modify).
prefix	A prefix is something that can be attached to the beginning of a word to form a new word, or a new form of a word. Prefixes are particular in what category of words they will attach to (i.e. only to verbs, or only to nouns, etc.) Examples in Umatilla are the verbal prefixes i- and á-.
pronoun	A pronoun is a word that can be used as a subsitute for a noun. These are often personal pronouns like “me”, “I”, “you”, or “she”.
second person	The second position is the forms used when refering to the peron being talked to in a conversation, i.e. “you”. In English, a distinction between singular and plural forms (i.e. “you” versus “you guys”) is not always made, but this distinction exists in Umatilla.
second position	The second position is a term for where a group of enclitics in Umatilla like to attach. They follow the first word in a sentence, and so they appear in the second position. Umatilla has second-position pronouns like -naš and -nam.
singular	Singular refers to there being only one of something. Nouns in Umatilla are not explicitly singular. This is like with the English word ‘sheep’. It may refer to one sheep or many sheep.
singular	The singular refers to there being only one of something.
sound symbolism	Sound symbolism is a process found in several indigenous languages of the western United States where certain consonants in a word are changed to express that something is either big or small.
stem	The stem is a base form of the verb to which other suffixes can be added. In Umatilla, you can form the stem by removing a final -n from the dictionary form.
subject	The subject of a sentence is who or what it is about. This is usually the person or thing doing an action.
suffix	A suffix is something that can be attached to the end of a word to create a new word, or a new form of a word. Suffixes are particular in what category of words they will attach to (i.e. only to verbs, or only to nouns, etc.) In Umatilla, the continuous -ša suffix attaches to verbs. The suffix -pamá attaches to nouns.
tense	Tense refers to when an action occurs, either in the present, the past, or the future. This can be combined with aspect and mood suffixes on a verb to give more details about an action.
third person	The third person refers to the forms used when refering to someone or something that is outside the conversation, i.e. “he”, “she”, or “it”. A third-person plural pronoun is “they”.
translocative	The translocative is a set of verb suffixes that indicate that the action is occuring away from the speaker.
verb	A verb is thought of as an action word. However, in Umatilla (and other Sahaptian languages) verbs are used more broadly. It’s better to think of a verb in terms of its role in a sentence. Verbs can have different tenses (past, present, future).
vocative	The vocative is a special form of a word (in Umatilla, it’s only for familiy members) that you use when you are calling out to them.
vowel	A vowel is a sound that is not a consonant. In Umatilla, the vowels are a, i, u, and ɨ. These can be long (written double) or short, and can be stressed or unstressed. Vowels are made with unrestricted airflow in the mouth.