Lesson 7

Lesson 7 — Grammatical Topic — The past tense marker –wa

Past tense is marked by the suffix –wa,
This suffix means either
	"past tense"
	or an action or condition of long duration ) it's been going on for a while.
English is very particular about marking verbs as past tense versus present or future, but it's rather casual about letting you know an action or condition was of long duration.
As a result you'll probably end up thinking of –wa as meaning past tense rather than long duration.
These lessons stick primarily to the "past tense" meaning of –wa simply because it's so much easier to translate.
Samala doesn't use –wa to mark past tense nearly as much as English does.
For example, in a myth or narrative of past events, the verbs usually show up without –wa, and even then these verbs refer to duration rather than past tense.
For example, the story of the Dog Girl begins:
	s–iy–kume–wa ha huu "there were some poor dogs"
The use of –wa in ikumewa — "they were poor, unfortunate" — indicates the long-standing poverty of the dog family rather than the past tense, especially since the verbs that follow are almost all in the present tense.

With that understanding of –wa, here are some examples that treat it as past tense for convenience in translation:
	k–uli–wa		"I held it, grabbed it"
	p–i–kuti–wa		"you two watched, saw it"
	ini–p–ip–wa		"you didn't say"		pikutiwa
	s–iy–mi–wa >	imiwa	"they cried"	kuliwa
Notice the effect that –wa has with sibilant harmony on prefixes and roots, even across several syllables:
	k–mes–wa >	kmewa	"I crossed, crossed over"
	s–iy–cc–wa	iwa	"they were sharp"		kmewa
	s–iy–tiyep–wa >	itiyepwa	"they told"
	s–qilik–wa >	qilikwa	"he/she took care [of it]"

Sound rules with –wa

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Like the –wun plural, the suffix –wa starts with the liquid consonant w.
You've already seen two sound rules — applying to the –wun plural — that also describe how –wa works with verb roots.
As with –wun plurals, a glottalized consonant loses its glottalization when another consonant follows — in this case the w of –wa:
	s–o–wa >	owa	"it was wet"
	k–tiik–wa >	ktiikwa	"I knew, recognized"
and glottal stop drops out when the consonant of –wa follows:
	k–it–wa >	kitwa	"I found it"
	p–icumu–wa >	piumuwa	"you pointed, pointed at or to it"	piumuwa

Stuck-in vowels with –wa

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With the plural marker –wun you saw how a vowel is stuck in to keep two liquids apart.
The same thing happens with –wa, but the stuck-in vowels are different — not suprising, since –wa itself has a as its vowel where –wun has u.
The situation is easy to describe with –wa: the stuck-in vowel echoes whatever vowel comes right before the first liquid:
a	s–aqan–wa >	aqánawa	"he/she/it died, was dead"
e	k–iy–elew–wa >	kiyeléwewa	"we went down, came down, descended"
i	s–oyin–wa >	oyíniwa	"it was black, dark"	oyiniwa	kiyelewewa
	p–wn–wa >	pwnwa	"you cut it with a knife"
o	p–i–kitwon–wa >	pikitwónowa	"you two came out, were coming out"
u	–tuhuy–wa >	tuhúyuwa	"it rained"
					pikitwonowa

The accent with stuck-in vowels

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You're familiar with the typical pattern of accenting the second syllable from the end of the word.

Both –wa

and –wu

n are exceptions to this pattern if they have triggered a stuck-in vowel.

This is another example of applying sound rules in a particular order.

Before you add the stuck-in vowel, accent the second syllable from the end as usual.

Then stick in the extra vowel to keep from pronouncing two liquids in a row, keeping the accent where it started.

This is exactly what happened historically.

Barbareño — which is closely related to Samala — doesn't use stuck-in vowels. The speakers of Samala began adding stuck-in vowels at some point after Barbareño and Samala had become separate languages.

Look at these two words, which are obviously very similar:

	basic	1. –wun plural	2. stuck-in vowel	as spoken
Barbareño:	tomol	tomól–wun	—	tomólwun
Samala:	tomol	tomol–wun	tomóluwun	tomóluwun

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