Uatakassi grammar notes

Basic word order is VSO. Subordinate clauses are not marked, but all clauses must start with a verb, so that if a noun is followed by a verb, it is either a new sentence or a subordinate clause. Sentences are marked with periods, so there should be no ambiguity there. Auxilaries are suffixed to their verb. Verbal agreement is with the argument in the absolutive.

When a verb is in the antipassive, the noun which would normally be absolutive (i.e., the patient) is marked with instrumental. In this particular text, that is the only use of the instrumental.

Any action which takes place in the future is marked with nai-, unlike in English where present tense is often used for future actions. The abscence of a tense prefix indicates present tense

The aspect suffix -ki requires some explanation. Arguably this has become a "default aspect". It is used whenever the indicated action is an action which is going on at the time indicated by the tense. This is almost obligatory with stative verbs and "to be".

Nouns may take multiple case suffixes. This occurs when one noun modifies another. The first case indicates the relationship to the head noun, while the second is agreement, thus _natabif uakibavaf_ (G2-boy-gen G6-forest-loc-gen) would be "of the boy in the forest".

Adjectives follow nouns, including demonstratives and numbers. Genitives (except genitive pronouns) come last. Reduplication in adjectives indicates "very" or "excessively"

Pati- is a difficult prefix. It can mean many things, primarily "group of", "category characterized by", "belonging to a group" (mostly with nouns like "spirit" or "goal"), "group of examples of X"