Muai - Grammar - Groups

Muai has nouns that start with common CV-syllables that shows that they are part of a group, that is, a noun class (animal, plant, job, etc.). The initial CV syllable of such a noun must be followed by a consonant, otherwise it's not understood as a class marker anymore. Such nouns have their roots suffixed with "-i" to refer to the concrete entity, or with "-u" to refer to characteristics of that type. For instance, "hapuasi" means "Brazil" and "hapuasu" means "brazility, Brazilian feature". There are still the verbs ending in "-e' or "-o" : "hapuase" is "to be Brazilian, to have Brazilian features" and "hapuaso" is the corresponding passive verb "to be a Brazilian feature of". In these groups, a lot of native languages' roots are adapted to Muai phonology, so sound symbolism has less influence here. A vocabulary of groups is available here: Muai - Vocabulary - Groups .

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