Aspect

Obligatory Aspect Inflection

All fully inflected verbs in Hikóómayíi take a suffix marking person/number/obviativity/animacy of the absolutive (S/P/R), mood/tense (realis, irrealis, or future — see below), and aspect (perfective or imperfective). Perfective (pfv) predicates are prototypically those viewed "externally," with a defined beginning and end, and no focus on internal structure. Imperfective (impfv) predicates are prototypically those viewed "internally," as being in progress or without a clearly defined end point, or with a focus on the event's internal structure. (However, there are a number of complications, some of which are taken up below.)

Further Aspectual Suffixes

The person/TAM suffix can optionally be followed by a further aspectual suffix providing further specification of the verb's aspect. These suffixes are:

• -nyó/-nóyo, stative (stat), which marks states or gnomic statements. The stative can be used with both perfective and imperfective verbs, but is rare with perfectives. See (20a,b) below.
• -oᴴkoᴴ, which with imperfective verbs is progressive (prog), marking an action in progress, and with perfective verbs is durative (dur), marking a completed action that extended over a period of time. See (21a,b) below.
• -oč, which with perfective verbs is completive (complv), indicating a past action carried through to completion, and with imperfective verbs is cessative (cess), which is fairly rare, but focuses on an action as drawing to a close. The cessative does not appear in the story. For the completive see (22) below.
• -yoᴴ, which only occurs with perfectives, is the momentane (mtn), marking a single action of short duration. See (23) below.
• -iᴴšoᴴ, which only occurs with imperfectives, is the inceptive (incept), marking an event that is beginning. See (24) below.
• -poᴴ, which only occurs with imperfectives, can have both iterative (iter) and habitual (habit) connotations, in both cases marking an action or state that occurs repeatedly over a given time frame. See (25a,b) below.

Examples of these aspectual suffixes, from the story:

(20a) wííšáay-šoᴴ-yóó-nyó > wííšáašoyóonyó
water-plentiful-3inan.real.impfv-stat
"there's plenty of water (here)" (stative/gnomic) (line 14)

(20b) |paᴴxaᴴ|-kan-waᴴ-yóóna-nóyo > paxákanwáyóónanóyo
dry-moving.water-become:inan-3inan.real.pfv-stat
"the rivers had become completely dry" (stative perfective) (line 5)

(21a) sayihpaᴴn-|óóčíí|-bon-`f-`yóo-oᴴkoᴴ-θak > sayihpanóóčííbonyóokoθak
mat-sit-applic-detr-3sprox.real.impfv-prog-rep
"he was sitting on his mat, it's said" (progressive) (line 63)

(21b) |kiᴴn|-(x)áá-yóóna-oᴴkoᴴ > kinááyóonkó
lie-loc.applic:an-3inan.real.pfv-dur
"he had lain there [for a long time]" (durative) (line 32)

(22) |skíí|-mθ-yóóna-oč-θak > skíimyóónačθak
complete-mid:inan-3inan.real.pfv-complv-rep
"(the medicine) was finished [being made], it's said" (completive) (line 69)

(23) |šyáp|-`yóos-yoᴴ > šyayóošyo
stand.up-3sprox.real.pfv-mtn
"he stood up" (momentane) (line 75)

(24) ʔáá-|saᴴ+saᴴfaᴴ|-yóó-iᴴšoᴴ > ʔáásasáfayóóšo
twisting-rdp+wriggle-3obv.real.impfv-incept
"it started writhing around" (inceptive) (line 61)

(25a) háám-|si+xí|-haᴴy-yóó-poᴴ > háamsixíhayóópo
every.time-rdp+see-appear.like-3obv.real.impfv-iter
"every time that (he) seemed to see it (a rabbit) . . ." (iterative) (line 47)

(25b) |óóčíí|-íin-poᴴ > hóóčííʔíinpo
sit-1sg.real.impfv-habit
"I sit here (every day)" (habitual) (line 13)

Other Conditions of Aspect Assignment

Certain derivational suffixes, verbal prefixes, and morphosyntactic processes require either perfective or imperfective inflection on the verb, which complicates the imperfective/perfective division as described above.

Derivational suffixes that condition one or the other aspectual inflections include: -:bo "be characterized by property/quality (usually negative)" (+impfv), -θoᴴč antipassive (+impfv), -(x)áá and -waᴴ "acquire condition/quality, become" (+impfv with one exception), and -yaᴴm telic/"accomplish goal" (+pfv). The use of the antipassive suffix to form complement clauses (as mentioned above) also requires that the verb be inflected as imperfective, except for the verb "say" |ho|, which can be (and generally is) perfective.

Verbal prefixes conditioning aspect inflection include: háám- "every time, each time, each instance" (+impfv), ʔIᴴčIᴴ- "try to..." (+pfv means "try and fail"; +impfv is ambiguous as to the success of the attempt), naᴴwóó- "stop" (+pfv), póóʔ- "habitually" (+impfv), and soʔ- iterative/"often, many times, over and over" (+impfv).

Finally, in involved, extended narratives, the imperfective is particularly common (used on verbs that would otherwise be expected to be perfective), as a way of tying subsequent clauses together and providing a sense of immediacy and involvement in the action (not unlike the English "historical present": "So I walk into the store, and there's this guy standing at the counter, and he gives me this weird look . . .", etc.).

Mood

The person/TAM suffixes also mark the predicate's mood, the main opposition being between realis and irrealis. The realis is used for declarative factual statements, negated factual statements, and Wh-questions. The irrealis is used for:

• yes-no questions (no examples in the story)
• conditionals and counterfactuals (no examples in the story)
• hypotheticals/possibility, often in conjunction with the dubitative evidential (see (26a,b) below)
• deontic modality (see 27 below)
• hortatives and certain imperatives (see 28 below)
• counter-factual subordinate clauses, generally some purposives and descriptions of non-existent things (see 29 below)
• possible consequence, marking dispreferred outcomes ("lest X happen, in order that X doesn't occur") (see 30 below)
  
• negated abilitative constructions (see 31 below)

(26a) |ʔoᴴčiᴴ|-sisa-hiᴴ > ʔočísisahi
human.die-1sg.irreal.pfv-dubit
"I may die" (line 6)

(26b) |koᴴmiᴴyiᴴ|-fi-hiᴴ > komíyifihi
come-3pprox.irreal.pfv-dubit
"(I sit here to see if) they might come" (line 13)

(27) očhó-|fáá|-íisa > hočhófááʔíisa
deont-wait.for-1sg.irreal.impfv
"(That's why I said you) should wait for me" (line 65)

(28) |kpááni|-si-oᴴkoᴴ > kpáánisiko
rest-2sg.irreal.impfv-prog
"may you rest / please rest" (line 15)

(29) póóʔ-|kpááni|-(x)áá-síí-poᴴ > póopáánixáásíípo
habit-sleep-loc.applic:an-3inan.irreal.impfv-habit
"(I have no lodge) to sleep in [=in which (I) could sleep]" (line 22)

(30) boł ki ʔayaθ ha+|háačí|-sin-poᴴ > boł ki ʔayaθ haháačísinpó
if neg before rdp+walk(sg)-1sg.irreal.impfv-habit
"Lest I wander about (with no shade) / better than me wandering about (with no shade)" (line 18; "if not yet" = "lest")

(31) ki pxáá-|šyáp|-sin > ki pxáašyasin
neg abilv-stand.up-1sg.irreal.impfv
"I'm not able to stand up" (line 33)

Evidentiality

Hikóómayíi has a limited evidentiality system, consisting of three (partly optional) suffixes which occupy the last slot in the verb and indicate the speaker's source of knowledge for or degree of confidence in the proposition represented by the verb.

The sensory -`šáá (sens) marks knowledge claimed due to sensory experience (generally vision and to a lesser extent smell and hearing, usually not used for taste or touch), but is occasionally used as well in narrative by a narrator to highlight the intense or highly discourse-relevant sensory experience of a main character. It is used this way in the Mosquito story, when Mosquito, after nearly dying in the desert, stumbles on an oasis (lines 8 and 9, see (32) below). The dubitative -hiᴴ (dubit) indicates the speaker is uncertain of the truth value of the statement, and requires irrealis marking (see (26a,b) above). The reportative -θak (rep) marks second-hand information. It is very common in traditional narratives like this one. In the story above it marks the matrix verb of the opening and closing sentence of each paragraph — one criterion for determining paragraph breaks (see (33) below).

(32) sohIᴴk-`č-yóó-nyó-`šáá > sohočóonyošáá
spring-exist:inan-3inan.real.impfv-stat-sens
"there was a spring there, he perceived [emphasizing character's sensory experience]" (line 8)

(33) |čsáá|-xaᴴ-nóó-`yóos-θak > čsááxanóoyóosθak
exit-caus-mid:an-3sprox.real.pfv-rep
"he got banished, it's said" (line 1)