Sauk II Part 1

In English, there are a few required parts of a sentence. These include: Subject (doer/experiencer) ex: I am a student. Verb (action/state) ex: I am a student. Object (receives action/experience) ex: I am a student. These are separate words in English, and they (almost) always appear in this order: SVO She eats pizza They like movies You read a lot of books.

In Sauk, we still have subjects, verbs, and objects, but they appear in a slightly different way. Sauk is a polysynthetic language. This means many parts of a sentence can be combined into a single word instead of lots of separate words. This is why Sauk words look so long- THEY ARE COMPLETE SENTENCES! Fortunately for us, we don’t have to memorize lots of little words and struggle putting them into the right order to make meaningful sentences. Your vocabulary words are already complete sentences.

Many of the words we think of as adjectives in English (tall, short, young, old, etc) are actually verbs in Sauk (to be tall, to be short, to be young, to be old). So the vocabulary words this week are verbs that describe a state of being. Mahkatêwânehkwêwa She has black/brown hair Kenôthiwa She/he is tall Ashkikiwa She/he is young

Subjects in Sauk appear at the beginning of the verb in the form of a pronominal (subject) prefix. HOWEVER, 3 rd person singular (he or she) does not have a prefix. 1 st person Newêwenethi I am beautiful (ne=I) 2 nd person Kewêwenethi You are beautiful (ke=you) 3 rd person Wêwenethiwa He/she is beautiful (nothing=he/she) Because there is no subject prefix, all of this week’s vocabulary refers to he/she. These sentences could easily be changed to I or you subjects with the addition of a subject prefix. Unlike English, Sauk does not differentiate between male and female 3 rd person (he or she).

He/She is beautiful.

He/She is ugly.

He/she is short.

He/She is tall.

He/She is young.

He/She is old.

He/She has big ears.

He/She has a big belly.

He/She is cute.