Lesson 4 — Grammatical Topic — The easiest plural — No marker

English is generally rather careful about marking plurals. The nouns in the sentences below are plural in English.
"the dogs are barking" "the dogs are barking"the dogs are barking"the dogs are barking his hands are dirty
  "the deer are running"
  "his hands are dirty"    
In Samala, there are three or four different ways to indicate that a noun is plural in sentences like these.
The easiest way is simply not to bother marking the noun as plural.
No information is lost here, since the verb spells out that you;re dealing with more than one. The verb shows up with the plural marker iy– and sometimes with the dual marker i–.
  s–iy–iwon ha huu "the dogs are barking" the deer are running
  s–iy–alpat ha w "the deer are running"
  s–i–nuyi ha s–pu "his hands are dirty"
  inuyi ha spu      

Practice with unmarked plurals
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Here are several sentences with plural nouns for you to practice this pattern of marking number just in the verb.
You'll see that most of these examples have the arrow that indicates some sound change. The two sound changes that operate here are:
The person marker  s becomes because of sibilant harmony
The plural marker  iy– in verbs becomes i– when a consonant follows.
  s–iy–iwon ha waqaq "the frogs are croaking" the frogs are croaking
  –i–itaq ha ii "the [two] kids are listening"  
  s–iy–woyo ha ya "the arrows are crooked"    
  iwoyo ha ya     the arrows are crooked
  –i–we ha p–icis "your [two] younger brothers are sleeping"  
  s–iy–umaw "my children are healthy"    
  iumaw ha k-itn      
  s–iy–mxxn ha xus "the bears are hungry"    
  simxxn ha xus     the boats are going fast
  s–iy–towi ha tomol "the boats are going fast"  
  itowi ha tomol      
  s–iy–yxkt ha ii   "the kids are awake"    
  siyxkt ha ii     the people are watching
  s–iy-kuti ha ku "the people are watching"  
  sikuti ha ku    

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