Sümi grammar: nine cases, five negatives

Nouns: number and possession

Plural: -qo

Singular is unmarked. Plural takes -qo:

There is a twist. When an adjective modifies the noun, the plural marker migrates onto the adjective rather than staying on the noun:

Possession

Basic possession is unmarked: you simply juxtapose possessor and possessed, in that order:

To emphasise ownership, the possessor takes -wu:

The case postpositions

Sümi marks case with postpositions, and it distinguishes animate from inanimate in the spatial cases: a distinction English handles with the same preposition in both situations.

The verb suffix chain

This is the heart of Sümi grammar. Verbs conjugate by adding suffixes to the root in a fixed order:

Root + Causative + Aspect/Modal + Negative + Tense

Once you internalise that order, you can read most Sümi verbs by peeling the suffixes off from the right. wü-lu-mla is root wü "go" + potential -lu + potential-negative mla = "cannot go". cü-mo-e is root cü "eat" + negative -mo- + stative tense -e = "did not eat".

Tense

Aspect

Verbs of motion take their own progressive series, which is why -ceni appears both as a motion progressive and as the general habitual: context and verb class distinguish them.

Modals

Causatives

The causative slot sits immediately after the root, before aspect. It is the mechanism behind pairs like vi "cure" → vilu "cured", and it composes freely with everything downstream in the chain.

Five ways to say no

This is where Sümi asks most of a learner. There are five negative markers, and they are not interchangeable: each negates a different kind of proposition.

1. Simple negative -mo-

Negates an ordinary event. It sits inside the verb, immediately before the tense marker.

2. Equative negative kumo

Negates an identity or equation: "X is not Y". A separate word, placed at the end.

3. Existential negative kiha

Negates existence or possession: "there is not", "does not have". This is the negative counterpart of ani in Aki ani "there is a house".

4. Imperative negative -kewi- / -ke-

Used only in commands. Note that the imperative suffix -lo still closes the verb:

5. Potential negative mla

Negates ability. It pairs with the potential marker -lu:

Adjectives, adverbs and comparison

Adjective position depends on the type of adjective: an unusual split:

• Qualitative and quantitative adjectives are post-posed: they follow the noun. apu kiwiqo "good boys".
• Colour adjectives are pre-posed: they precede the noun.

Intensifiers

Comparatives

Comparison uses -nuno "than" on the standard, with a nominalising -ü on the adjective. The template is: A, B `-nuno`, C`-ü`: "A is more C than B".

Questions and relative clauses

Basic word order is Subject–Object–Verb throughout.

Questions

Interrogatives are marked by a sentence-final particle: kya, ma, kesya or kema. Word order does not change.

Relative clauses

Relative clauses use the particle kew "who / which / that". The clause precedes the head noun:

The system in one table

Practice

Take a verb from the table above and try to build it out one suffix at a time (root, then aspect, then negative, then tense), and check yourself against NagaChat, which will explain what it corrects.

If you speak Sümi and find an error here, please send a correction. Sümi has less digital text than almost any language a translation system is normally built for, and speaker corrections are the main way that changes.