Cherokee Grammar & Syntax
Consider:
B-C-E
ᎠᎩᎪᏩᏘᎭ
agi-gowati-ha (I am seeing it.)
ᎯᎩᎠ
hi-gi-a (You are eating it.)
ᎤᏚᎵᎭ
u-duli-ha (She/He wants it.)
a-B-C-E
ᏓᎩᎪᏩᏘᎭ
d-agi-gowati-ha (I am seeing them.)
ᏕᏣᎸᏫᏍᏓᏁᎭ
de-tsa-lvwisdane-ha (You are working.)
ᏳᏚᎵᎭ
y-u-duli-ha (If you want it.) (This is also used to make a negative
sentence when adding gesdi/tla before the y- "gesdi yuduliha - He
doesn't want it")
a-a-B-C-E
ᏫᏕᏣᎸᏫᏍᏓᏁᎭ
wi-de-tsa-lvwisdane-ha (You are working over there.)
B-d-C-E
ᎢᎾᏓᎪᏩᏘᎭ
in-ada-gowati-ha (The two of us are looking at each other.)
B-C-E-f
ᎤᏚᎵᎭᏍᎪ?
u-duli-ha-sgo? (Does he want it?)
B-C-d-E-f
ᎢᏕᏙᎭᏊ
id-e-do-ha-gwu (We are just walking around)
a-B-C-E-f
ᏕᏣᎸᏫᏍᏓᏁᎭᏃ
de-tsa-lvwisdane-ha-hno (And you are working.)
Introduction to Cherokee Verbs
Throughout this website, there are a few pronunciation marks used to help. First, this sign - /ɂ/ is used to indicate a "glottal stop" which is sort a catch in breath between two sounds. There are a few examples in English. One is the way some people pronounce "button" when it sounds like the speaker swallowed the /t/ sound. This sound in English is what makes the distinction between "a nice man" and "an ice man". The sound between the words "an" and "ice" in the second sentence is a glottal stop.
A colon ":" is used to show that a vowel is pronounced long. In Cherokee, that means that the sound is held about twice as long as short vowel. Except for the length of time held, long vowels and short vowels usually sound the same.
Occasionally, there will be a vowel with a dot under it. It hasn't been used much on this site but it denotes the opposite of the colon and means the vowel is short. It means that the vowel is held half as long in speech. Feeling & Pulte used this sign in the Cherokee-English Dictionary (CED) instead of the "long" marker because they reasoned that short vowels are the exceptions in spoken Cherokee.
Using Cherokee Verbs
When learning Cherokee verbs you need to always have the First and Third Person Singular forms of the verb available or you will not have sufficient information to conjugate the verb correctly.
Unlike European verbs, when a Cherokee verb takes an object it is understood as an innate part of the verb, e.g. "agowatiha - she/he/it sees it". Note the object of the verb "it" underlined in the translation. Therefore "ᎩᎵ ᎠᎪᏩᏘᎭ - gili agowatiha" literally means "She/He/It sees (it) a dog". If there is no other object for these verbs, such as "dog" in this example, the verb object "it" is implied and understood. Cherokee also doesn't have grammatical gender like most European languages. She/He/It means that any one of these, i.e. she or he or it, could be the subject (the one who is "seeing") as appropriate. This also applies for the object pronouns her/him/it.
Many times, the frustration in learning Cherokee verbs for beginners comes from having to grapple with the many complex prefixes and suffixes that can sometimes be almost indistinguishable one from the other to the new learner. Learning to distinguish the basics of the Cherokee verb will make learning the language more fruitful and less frustrating. Click here for more about Cherokee pronouns and also check out the other pages on the Grammar tab.
Cherokee verbs are sometimes referred to as verbal phrases. They are made up of the following components which generally retain the following order - a, B, C, d, E, f. All representations in capital letters are required for any basic verb (B, C, E), small letters (a, d, f) are used on certain verbs or as needed to express slight changes and additions of mood and these are all explained below.
a - Prefixes are placed before a Bound Pronoun and the
verbal root and can indicate such meanings as direction
(towards or away from the speaker), number (plural markers for
objects), and other additional meanings. For example:
Ꮻ wi- indicates action away from speaker;
Ꮥ de- (or sometimed Ꮧ di-) to express plural objects;
Ꮵ tsi- has a number of possible meanings depending on context, such as
marking the beginning of a subordinate clause or sometimes just
emphasizing a statement and many learners can confuse it with the 1st
person singular (I) pronoun;
Ꮣ da- can indicate direction towards the speaker. When it used on the
Remote Past stem with the -i suffix, it forms a Future tense of the
verb. Such possibilities are usually clear in context.
Some verbs may require one of these prefixes throughout, such as the
verbs for "work", "be tired", "be named", and a few others require the
"de-" require the plural/distributive prefix throughout. Other verbs,
such as "hungry" and "thirsty" require this prefix with all dual and
plural bound pronouns but not with the three singular (I, you (one
person), and he, she, or it. For this website, they are referred to as
"Complexed Verbs".
Note! It's not uncommon for several of these in
combination to be stacked up on the front of a verb ste. For example,
ᎯᎩ! higi! - (you) pick it up! (cf. ᎠᎩᎠ he's picking it up) As
in:
ᏒᎦᏔ ᎯᎩ! svkta higi! - (you) Pick up the apple!
The Ꮥ de- plural prefix can be added for more
than one object (here, the apples) and combines with Ꭿ to become Ꮨ- ti-:
ᏒᎦᏔ ᏘᎩ! svkta tigi! - (you) Pick these/those apples up!
The prefix Ꮻ- wi- can be added to indicate that
they are located away from the speaker:
ᏒᎦᏔ ᏫᏘᎩ! svkta witigi! - (you) Pick up those apples over
there!
That's a lot of information now packed into one Cherokee word!
The Cherokee-English Dictionary by Feeling & Pulte has a much more complete list of these "initial" or "pre-pronominal" prefixes. Click here to read more.
B - Pronoun Prefix (bound pronoun) - One of these prefixes must be present on all tense stems of Cherokee verbs, including infinitives. Even verbs expressing a general meaning in English, e.g., running, spoken, etc. must include a pronoun prefix in Cherokee.
There are two primary sets of pronoun prefixes: Set A and Set B. Each
set has a slightly different form for some pronouns depending on if
the verb stem begins with a vowel or a consonant. Each verb listed on
the Verb Index page has a note in grey for whether it uses Set A or
Set B pronouns. Learners should pay careful attention to this
when learning the pronouns and how to use them.
In addition to the Set A and Set B pronouns, there is also a special
set of pronouns to indicate that the object of the verb is animate
or living and these pronouns will take the place of A and B
pronouns. Click here for
more on Animate Object Pronouns.
C - Verb Stem - the verb stem in Cherokee can be difficult to figure out sometimes, meaning it is sometimes hard to tell where the pronoun ends and the verb stem begins. This is one reason why it is important to have the 1st person singular and 3rd person singular of the verb available in order to know how to conjugate the verb. If the verb stem starts with a vowel you must drop the vowel from the pertinent pronoun when conjugating; for verb stems beginning with a consonant, the vowel on the pronoun is not dropped. All of the verbs listed on this site show the Verb Stem between dashes.
The verb stem -woni- (meaning "speak") takes Set A pronouns, i.e., tsi- (I), ga- (s/he, it), and ani- (they), etc. Because the verb stem starts with the consonant /w/, the pronoun prefixes retain their final vowel when joined to the verb stem; i.e., tsi-woni-, ga-woni-, ani-woni-.
The verb stem -advne- (meaning "do") is an example of a verb that begins with a vowel. Some basic pronouns for this verb are Set A: g- (I) g-advne-ha; a- (she/he/it - because the verb starts with an "a" the pronoun a- merges with the first letter of the stem in this instance) advne-ha; an- (they) an-advne-ha; etc. Because the verb stem starts with a vowel, the "i" vowel is dropped from the pronouns when they attach to the verb.
d - Additional non-final affixes - (used to provide additional meaning to a verb), These are used to give additional meaning or nuance to a verb. Some are inserted after the pronoun before the verb root, such as -ada- for a reflexive meaning (oneself, each other) and some are inserted between the stem and the Tense Suffix such as -idol- (or -doh-) to give the meaning of "movement from place to place" or "random movement within a small area". Other examples include: reversive, repetitive, causing something to happen, or reversing the action of the verb (un- in English, as in undo), etc. These are more complexed verb structures. Click here for a fuller discussion in the "Cherokee-English Dictionary")
E - Tense Suffix or Time Marker. This is the suffix that states the tense or time in which the action is taking place (like in English: -ed, -ing, etc.). Examples of possible forms of these suffixes are, -a, -ha, -ga, -sga, -sgoɂi, -goɂi, -hoɂi, -oɂi, -vɂi, -gvɂi, -sgvɂi, -sdi, -di, -si, -i, and more. The forms used for each verb on this site are listed in the left-hand column of the individual verb pages and the Tense Suffixes must be learned for each verb.
Most Cherokee grammarians show the Five Principal Tense Stems of a Cherokee verb - Present, Habitual (Imperfective, Incomplete, Progressive), Remote (or Complete/Perfective) Past, Immediate/Imperative, and Infinitive forms. Duane King, however, in his 1975 dissertation (A Grammar and Dictionary of the Cherokee Language) analyzed the Cherokee verb to its most basic component - the verb stem or root - which is how the verbs are referred to on this site. A tense suffix may add to or subtract one or more sounds/letters from a verb's stem to create the tense stems. Note that the "Remote Past" and the "Infinitive" form will always take either Set B Pronouns or Animate Object Pronouns.
f - Final Suffixes - These suffixes are used to add extra
meanings to the verbal phrase. Examples: question markers (-tsu, -s,
-sgo); "or" (-ke); "but" (-hv); "what about" (-na); "or else" (-isi);
"just, only" (-gwu), etc.
The "Grammar Guide" of the "Cherokee-English Dictionary" has more
complete lists of the various prefixes and suffixes used in the
Cherokee language.
Here are a few examples of verbs conjugated on this web site:
Speak
Do
Example
of a complexed verb form
For
more breakdown of verbs
At this point you may be interested in an excellent little application
for drilling the bound pronouns in a game-like fashion. This
application for iPhones and Androids was created by ᎹᎦᎵ for drilling
the entire set of Cherokee bound pronouns in small bites and can be
found here: Cherokee
Bound Pronouns It can also be downloaded for use on
desktop or laptop computers!
To go to the page listing verbs tables on this site, CLICK
HERE
