Syntax:
Teonaht is largely analytic, it follows word order, SOV or, more literarily OSV. In this poem I've followed mostly SOV order. If SOV order is followed, then there is almost always a resumptive pronoun: "The dog a bone he buried." Adjectives follow nouns.
Teonaht is zero-copula. Sentences seeming to end with a pronoun are missing the conjugated forms of parem, "be." These appear only in emphasis.
Word order for "relative" or "dependent" clauses mirror the syntax of the main clause in a chiastic formation, and this will be essential for your understanding the first three verses. Here's an example:
Beto elry ke ravvo-hai-el vera il gwenda.
Boy past-I see love-who-past not the girl.
"I saw a boy who did not love the girl."
For scansion, this rule is sometimes flouted, especially with the aspectual particles, and you'll find ravvo-el-hai in the subordinate clause.
The two verbs are in the middle, next to each other.
Prefixes and suffixes:
The Teonim are promiscuous when it comes to prefixes and suffixes, mixing them and switching them gleefully. The plural suffix -n/-in easily and frequently becomes the plural prefix ni-; mim- is a common plural prefix for the natural world; the preterite suffix -el almost without exception detaches and prefixes to the pronoun before its verb in the main clause: so instead of rykkel, "I saw," one finds elry ke, "I saw." This is reversed, though, in the subordinate clause. This rule applies to all the tense particles and to the aspectual particles as well. And to some modals such as tal (can).
The aspect particle -om- is the one featured in this text most often. I identify it as the "habitual" or the "consuetudinal" but it would be cumbersome to translate it as "usually." It is invisible, and it simply means that the action being described is not a solitary event in time but one that occurs over time. The simple present (radical verb used without tense or aspect), such as ly ennyve, "she eats," would be translated in English as "she is eating." Omly ennyve, "she eats," means that she does so in a perceived pattern, and should be translated as "she eats (with her friends on Saturdays, only rabbit, very infrequently, etc.). It's often used as a kind of historic: "There lived a family, who fed their pigs on corn, who, etc."
The progressive particle bom is used before gerundials to indicate the present participle, or an adverbial ("by doing X").
Verbs:
There are three classes of verb: volitional (with the gerundial suffix -rem), non-volitional (with the gerundial suffix -ned), and stative (with the gerundial suffix -di or ndi). These will make no difference to your translation unless you have a language that recognizes volitionality, which in Teonaht is expressed grammatically in a verb whose subject is an agent rather than an experiencer. The only point you need recognize is that in the radical, the clitics -n- and -d- prefix the aspect/tense particle or suffix the verb in the subordinate clause. Here's an example with the preterite tense particle: Elry atwa (volitionally I did walk), nelry ke (non-volitionally or experientially I saw--as opposed to watched), delry rõhõn (I was cold).
Verbal Adverbs:
There is one instance of a "verbal adverb" in the text above, and see if you can find it. "Verbal adverbs" are poetic, and they form adverbs out of stative verbs or "verbal adjectives" ("to cold, to blue," etc.). Here, the stative verb becomes the verb, and the verb in its gerundial form becomes a kind of "false object." Example:
Neomrem delo fõn; nwehsrem delo nimin.
breathing did he deep; swimming did he swift.
"He deeped breathing, he swifted swimming"; i.e.,
"He breathed deeply, he swam swiftly."
From: fõndi, "be deep" and nimindi, "be swift."