User:JamieLHudson/sandbox

Verbs
Itza' is an ergative-absolutive language demonstrating split ergativity. Ergative person markers indicate intransitive subjects in the imperfective aspect and all transitive subjects, while absolutive person markers indicate intransitive subjects in the perfective aspect and in dependent clauses and all objects. The ergative set of person markers are added morphologically as a prefix to the verb. The absolutive set of person markers are added as a suffix to the verb. Independent pronouns are unmarked and used for highlighting in discourse.

Itza' employs the Irrealis grammatical mood to mark the future tense: the mood is coupled with a temporal adjective to form a future construction. The past tense is similarly constructed by using the Perfect tense and temporal adjectives. Similarities in the Irrealis and Perfect constructions may suggest that the Itza' consider the past and future to be similar, which reflects the Itza' worldview that time is cyclical.

Sentence Structure
Itza' has VOS word order, although VSO is also common and all word orders are possible. The subject-object distinction in VSO word order can be ambiguous when the sentence is given out of context. Topicalization is marked by the addition of a suffix and the movement of the topicalized word to the sentence initial position. Itzaj uses null anaphora, so two nominal arguments are usually rare. One noun is expressed while the other is marked as a person marker on the verb. In this case, VS and VO are both accepted. The nominal argument that gets expressed is new information introduced to the listener.

Generally, modifiers precede the words they modify: adjectives, numerals, determiners, and negation all follow this pattern. Possessives, demonstratives, and relative clauses all typically follow the words they modify; adjectives can also occur in this position.