Sentences in Timucua have “SOV” (subject-object-verb) word order. That means that the subject and object precede the verb. About half of the world’s languages follow this word order. English is not one of them. English has a “SVO” (subject-verb-object) word order. In English, we would say “The woman eats fish.” In Timucua we would say: Niama cuyu hetela/The woman fish eats.
Let’s look at the sentence return to the story of “The Woman Who Ate Dirt,” and look at sentence 1.2. It is a more complicated sentence than niama cuyu hetela. The sentence from the story has an intransitive verb (a verb that does not take a direct object). But it still shows how the SOV word order.
Ano yayi hachitalaca acu nia chocorileta hibabila
If we were to translate to English every word, but keep them in the Timucua word order, the sentence would read:
Person important rich that woman powerful lived
The subject (ano or person) goes first, followed by an appositive (a noun phrase that modifies the subject, in this case: important, rich, woman, and powerful), and at the end is the verb (hibabila or lived). Since keeping the Timucua syntax makes the sentence a bit awkward in English, we offer a translation that flows better:
There lived a noble person, a powerful woman, who was an important person.
Many Timucua sentences have an unspecified, implied, or implicit subject. Meaning that although the word order is SOV, the subject might not always be clear. Take the sentence in Lesson 1 about the woman who “ate dirt, mud, tree leaves, pine bark, broken pottery and other very bad things”/Qisaco iqeco ayesileco cupaco vlipalaco eyoisiticocobacare quenema hebila. The Timucua sentence doesn’t actually include the subject. It never says “the woman.” Instead, it is a long list of objects (all the “bad things” the woman ate) followed by the verb. The subject is missing.
Well… it is not entirely missing. It is implied in the verb: hebila. This verb is not conjugated in the first person or in the second person… so, by process of elimination, it must be in the third person. It is also not in the plural… so we can deduce it is in the singular. Timucua verbs are in the third person singular (she/he/one), unless there is a prefix or suffix that modifies the verb. Meaning that someone, in this case “the woman,” did the action (“eating dirt…and other bad things”). We will discuss tenses and verbs in more detail in later lessons, but at this stage we merely want to point out that verbs contain a lot of information… including how the sentence works and where they end.
Making Sentences
There are many different types of sentences in Timucua, but Declarative Sentences seem to be the most common. Most declarative sentences end with a -la or -le suffix. Let’s look again at the sentence about the woman eating “dirt, mud, tree leaves, pine bark, broken pottery and other very bad things.” The Timucua reads:
Qisaco iqeco ayesileco cupaco vlipalaco eyoisticocobacare quenema hebila
The verb is he (to eat) and, as to be expected, it is located at the end of sentence. But this verb has two important modifications. First, it is in the past tense. There is a suffix -bi attached to the verb– we will discuss verb tenses in later lessons. And second, it has a declarative -la at the end of the word. So to break it down:
| he | -bi | -la |
| Eat | Past Tense | Declarative |
Let’s focus on the suffix -la
That little suffix at the end of the verb is very important. It transforms the verb and words that came before it into a sentence. That -la has several roles. First, it like a period. It tells readers and listeners: “hey the sentence is over, a different idea follows this one.” Timucua sentences can seem very long… looking for the -la at the end of verbs is a quick way to start breaking down the text and note when stop reading. Second, and just as its label as a “declarative” seems to suggests, it declares and affirms what has been said. The -la at the end of hebila is almost like a: “yup, she ate.”
Let’s look at the second sentence in the story of the “Woman Who Ate Dirt”
Caqi nubotamano, osococo Dios inosisiromanta, aquitasiqelenoma, yaleta mosohaueleta, monja habito laputa monja conuento echala.
This noble person wanted to serve God more and in order to take care of her virginity, she requested the nun’s habit and entered a Convent.
There is a lot we can say about this sentence and its translation. But let’s stick with the suffix -la. It follows the expected pattern. It is at the end of the sentence, noting that the idea expressed in the sentence is finished. It is at the end of the verb echa (to enter), affirming/declaring: “the woman entered the convent.”
There is also -ta
-la is not the only suffix in town that helps form sentences. -ta is another common suffix that appears at the end of verbs. It is a participial suffix. It unites verbs that have the same subject and links together a common idea in the sentence. If -la signaled that the sentence was over, -ta seems to suggest: “keep going, there is more happening in this sentence.”
Let’s look again at the sentence:
Caqi nubotamano, osococo Dios inosisiro manta, aquitasiqelenoma, yaleta mosohaueleta, monja habito laputa monja conuento echala.
We have looked at the final verb echa and its suffix -la. But now note the other verbs: yale-ta (take care of/guard), man-ta (want), lapu-ta (request). They all have a suffix -ta. The suffix -ta links all the actions in the sentence: taking care of, doing, and requesting. -ta signals that the “woman who ate dirt” is the subject of all these verbs.
These suffixes can affect the spelling within the verb. Linguists might say something like “this participial suffix can cause the preceding vowel to be deleted,” or, in simpler terms, adding -ta at the end of a verb can change the spelling of other suffixes within the word. For example, when adding the suffix -ta:
- The verb mani becomes manta. The “i” is deleted.
- The passive -ni becomes simply -n.
- The benefactive -si is reduced to just -s.
- The reciprocal -sini becomes simply -sin.
In other words, adding -ta affects not only how the word behaves (connecting it to a similar subject and linking it to other ideas), but also its spelling.
Concluding Thoughts
These details about spelling might be overwhelming… but the two main points are:
- -la and -ta are common verb endings in Timucua. They help us identify the verbs within the sentence.
- -la and -ta help us understand how sentences are bound together and where they end.