SSBMI Language Department

Education Center Staff Nisenan Class - October 30, 2023

In this class, we learned more language for giving commands to groups of people or individuals. In particular, we learned how to tell someone to "not" doing something using the negation suffix "-men". You can download a copy of the review sheet from this class by clicking here.

Previously, we learned verbs like "dəkə-" (to stand up) and "iskit-" (to sit down)", and we learned how to command a single person to do those things. Namely, we add the singular command suffix "-p" to the end of the verb stem if it ends in a vowel (e.g. "dəkə-" (to stand up) -> "Dəkə́p!" (Stand up!)), but no suffix when the verb stem ends in a consonant (e.g. "iskit-" (to sit down) -> "Iskít!" (Sit down!)).

To tell someone to "not" do those things, you add the negation suffix "-men" to the end of the verb stem. Compare these pairs of commands:

As we can see here, you attach the negation suffix "-men" to the verb stem before you would attach the singular command suffix "-p" (i.e. so we don't say *"Dəkəpmén!", for example). Because the negation suffix ends in a consonant, you do not add the singular command suffix.

You can use the negation suffix "-men" with other verbs that we've learned too, like "mey-" (to give) and "etati-" (to show). Again, you just add the negation suffix to the end of the verb stem (and you do not add the singular command suffix). Compare the following pairs of commands:

Esak’ábe mi? (Do you remember?) You can use the negation suffix "-men" to negate any verb in Nisenan. In fact, you may already be familiar with this suffix from pairs of sentences like "Wenném ni" (I am good) versus "Wennemením ni" (I am not good), and "Kɨɨpém ni" (I am happy) versus "Kɨɨpemením ni" (I am sad/not happy). (The "m"/"ím" on the ends of these verbs is a grammatical suffix that means roughly "am" here).

To learn more language for talking about your emotions, please check out our "How are you?" webpage by clicking here.

Telling a group of people "not" to do things

Above, we saw that you put the negation suffix "-men" on the end of the verb stem before you would add the singular command suffix "-p".

It works the same way with the plural command suffix "-wa", which you use to tell a group of people to do something. Because "-wa" does not care whether the verb stem ends in a vowel or consonant, you always add it after "-men" when telling a group of people to "not" do something:

You can use the negation suffix "-men" and the plural command suffix "-wa" with any of the verbs that we've learned so far, like so:

Hontuymén! (Don't forget!) You add the negation suffix "-men" to the verb stem before adding a command suffix (if applicable).

Here is a diagram to help you remember: VERB STEM - NEGATION - COMMAND