Lesson 6 — Grammatical Topic — Making nouns from verbs:  the agentive prefix al–

You can make verbs into nouns with the prefix  al–.
This prefix is called the "agentive" in traditional grammar; it refers to a person or thing that performs the action the verb describes. The most obvious English equivalent is the suffix "–er" as in "singer."
	al–alpat	"runner: one who runs"	al–expe	"singer: one who sings"
	al–aqmil	"drinker: one who drinks"	al–itaq	"listener: one who listens, hears"
Here are examples of agentives in a sentence:			alexpe	alalpat
	s–itaq ha al–expe	"he/she listens to the singer"
	–towi ha al–alpat	"the runner is fast"
You can add al– to verbs which don't readily take "–er" in English:
	al–esqen	"one who asks" or "questioner"	alesqen	alipoy
	al–otoyin	"one who is lying down"
	al–ipoy	"one who is smiling"
The agentive prefix al– is used quite widely in Samala, since it also goes with verbs that we regard as adjectives in English:
	al-aqan	"one who is dead"	alaqan
	or	"dead person"		alukal
	al–ukal	"one who is strong"
	or	"something that is strong"

Sound Rule — Glottal stop with al–

Top

All the examples of the prefix al– that you've seen so far occur with verbs that start with vowels.
There are two more sound rules that you must know to use al– with verbs that start with consonants. Just as with the plural suffix –wun, these two rules have much wider application than just  al–.
When glottal comes right after another consonant, the two fuse as a single glottalized consonant. You've seen this rule before, but it doesn't make a serious difference in the pronunciation in an example such as
	ma k–ap > ma kap	"my house"
However, the change is obvious when you add the agentive prefix al– to a verb that starts with a glottal stop.
The "l" and the glottal stop become a single glottalized l — l. You hear the glottalization before the l, so it sounds like the l and glottal stop trade places:				alip
	al–ip > alip	"one who says"
	al–o > alo	"one who is wet" or "something that is wet"
	al–owow > alowow	"one who is white" or "something that is white"	alikmin
	al–ikmin > alikmin	"one who is young/new" or "something that is new"		alo

Sound Rule with al–  —  l drops out before a consonant

Top

When the verb begins with any consonant other than glottal stop, al– is shortened to a–. This happens with a number of prefixes, but al– is the first example youve seen:
	al–kuti > akuti	"watcher: one who sees or watches"	aqilik
	al–yuxpan > ayuxpan	"one who is sick"
	al–qilik > aqilik	"care-taker, one who takes care of"
As with the two sound rules on the previous page, describing stuck-in vowels and loss of glottal stop, these two sound rules governing al– apply in order.
These sound rules make the most sense when you think first of "l" merging with glottal stop as l and and then "l" dropping out before all other consonants.

Top