Talk:ałhą́ą́ʼ

Verb stem

Is the verb stem -ghą́ą́ʼ at all related to the infix ghá (“through, piercing”)? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:34, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

No, I know of no relationship between them.

Verb valency

The verb classifier -ł- suggests that this verb has or had transitive senses. Are there any related verb forms that use a specified object with prefix yi-? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 21:34, 5 February 2015 (UTC)

No, not yi-. The verb stem -ghą́ą́ʼ occurs with the ʼa-thematic (3rd-p object pronoun) + the -ł- classifier as the theme in verb bases meaning snore. To understand the valency, you could retranslate ałhą́ą́ʼ to mean "he is growling it". -ghą́ą́ʼ can also take the haʼa- prefix (haʼashhą́ą́h, I start to snore), iʼnii- prefix (iʼniishhą́ą́h, I start to snore), ńdíʼníi- prefix (ńdíʼníishhą́ą́h, I get a good start snoring), áhodi- prefix (áhodishghą́ą́ʼ, I pretend to be snoring). —Stephen ^(Talk) 04:25, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

Interesting, thank you. Are there any other "growl" verbs in Navajo that use this same verb stem? ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │ Tala við mig 05:57, 6 February 2015 (UTC)

No. -łhą́ą́ʼ is the imperfective continuous stem, meaning to snore, to be snoring. The other stems are momentane stems, which are used for starting to snore: -łhą́ą́h (imperfective), -łhą́ą́h (iterative), -łhą́ą́ʼ (perfective), -łhą́ą́ł (future), -łhą́ą́ʼ (optative). —Stephen ^(Talk) 06:19, 6 February 2015 (UTC)