Thursday, July 2, 2009

Leksion Chamoru: I mas fondamento na estrukturan Chamoru (The most basic Chamorro structure)

One of the most basic of all sentence structures in Chamorro is what I will call a "simple description." These are just sentences with a subject and a description:
  • The house is big.
  • The car is red.
  • The chair is wide.
  • The kid is tall.
In Chamorro we use the pattern: description + article
+ subject. (The definite article is "i".) So, here's how we would say the above simple descriptions the Chamorro way:
  • Big "i" house.
  • Red "i" car.
  • Wide "i" chair.
  • Tall "i" kid.
To say them completely in Chamorro, we'd say:
  • Dånkolo i gima'.
  • Agaga' i kareta.
  • Fedda' i siya.
  • Lokka' i patgon.
When the subject is a proper name, the structure remains the same. The only difference is that we change the article to "si." Here are some examples:
  • Maria is pretty. ==> Pretty "si" Maria. ==> Bonita si Maria.
  • John is skinny. ==> Skinny "si" John. ==> Dalalai si John (Juan).
  • Joe is tall ==> Tall "si" Joe. ==> Lokka' si Joe (Jose).
  • Rosa is sick. ==> Sick "si" Rosa. ==> Målångu si Rosa.

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