-ajö

-ajö

See also: ajo, ajó, aĵo, ajö, -ajo, -aĵo, and a'jö

Maquiritari

Alternative forms

• (allomorphs) -kajö, -yajö, -aajö

Etymology

From Proto-Cariban *-sapô. Cognates in most other Cariban languages do not allow any person marking; this innovation seems largely restricted to Maquiritari and languages of the Panare and Pemon groups.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [-ahə]

Suffix

-ajö

1. Forms nouns with perfective-past-participle-like meaning (‘the fact that X was done’) from verbs, which can take patient-like person markers and which, if intransitive, must bear the intransitive prefix w-.

Usage notes

This suffix can trigger syllable reduction on the preceding syllable. The suffix takes the form -kajö when the preceding syllable is reducible and has an onset of k, -yajö when the preceding syllable ends in i, and -ajö in other contexts. When the final vowel of the preceding syllable is o or ö and the stem is three or more syllables long, that vowel changes to a and forms a single (long) syllable with the -a- of this suffix; final stem vowels of a also merge into a single long syllable.

Person markers referring to interlocutors on a verb nominalized with this suffix are uncommon outside of conditional subordinates formed with a nominalization in -ajö and the postposition jökö.

References

• Cáceres, Natalia (2011), “-ajö”, in Grammaire Fonctionnelle-Typologique du Ye’kwana, Lyon, page 51, 141–142