Table 9.
Part of speech categories.
| Category | Description |
|---|---|
| Noun (open) | Head of a noun phrase |
| Verb (open) | Head of a verb phrase |
| Adjective (open) | Describes the qualities or characteristics of nouns |
| Adverb (open) | Qualifies verbs, describing the manner of an action or its circumstances |
| Name (open) | Proper name |
| Coverb (closed) | Grammatical morpheme that functions as a preposition, but also exhibits properties typical of verbs; for example, coverbs can take an aspect marker or verbal particle; coverbs may occur without a following verb, but the coverb and its arguments usually modify the verb phrase it follows |
| Localizer (closed) | Grammatical expressions that either function as adverbs of location or postpositions |
| Pronoun (closed) | Deictic expression marked for person, number (with suffix -dei22 for plural); 3sg pronoun kœi23 can replace animate, inanimate, and abstract entities |
| Determiner (closed) | Deictic expression that picks out objects in time and space, including demonstratives this, that, here, and then and numerals |
| Classifier (closed) | Obligatory grammatical morpheme occurring before the noun, serving to classify nouns loosely based on shape, natural kind, and function; two or more alternative classifiers are available for some nouns |
| Auxiliary (closed) | Function word appearing before the first verb and functions similarly to other verbs; an auxiliary does not take an aspect marker or verb particle, and it does not carry tense, aspect or mood; when the main verb is clear, the verb can be dropped with auxiliary support |
| Conjunction (closed) | Grammatical morpheme that conjoins two words or phrases of the same class; can be overt or null |
| Sentence final particle (closed) | Grammatical morpheme at the end of a topic or a clause and serves three major pragmatic functions: indicating speech-act types, conveying evidentiality, and emotional coloring |
| Verbal particle (closed) | Grammatical morpheme following the main verb and indicates results, direction, adversaries, or habits |
| Aspect marker (closed) | Bound form that marks aspect and behaves essentially like suffixes; it cannot be separated from a verb |
| Negator (closed) | Morphemes m21 and mou23; the former precedes a verb for negative imperative or present or future verbal negation; the latter precedes a verb for negation of past events |
| Linker GE (closed) | Grammatical morpheme linking modifying expressions and head nouns; may be omitted in certain environments, including with kinship terms and other nouns with a close link between the possessor and the noun |
| Interjection (closed) | Simple emotive or filler word |