A useful group of imperatives which we can learn at this point is the words for telling someone to get dressed and undressed.

 

cíí3ibíí	get dressed!
néé3ibíí	get undressed!

 

Notice that the endings of these verbs are the same, but the beginning parts are different. The ending part -ibii means "clothes," while cii3- means "get into" or "put on" and nee3- means "get out of" or "take off." (Or hookóó3-ibíí = change clothes!) Many verbs in Arapaho have two separate meaningful parts like this - we will discuss this much later.

If you want to be more specific, you can take the first part of the verbs above and then replace "clothes" with specific clothing items:

 

wo'óh	shoe
cííto'óhnii	put on your shoes!
nééto'óhnii	take off your shoes!

woté'	hat
cíítotó'(o)nii	put on your hat!
néétotó'(o)nii	take off your hat!

wótoo	pants
cíitótoohóe	put on your pants!
néetótoohóe	take off your pants!!

 

Note that in all the examples, ciit- or nee3- are added to the noun, which loses its first consonant, and then an ending is put on the end (usually -nii). Therefore, nouns can be added into verb forms ("incorporated" in linguistic terms). We will discuss this much later and see that this loss of the first consonant is very common.

 

 

Exercises for Lesson Seven