sew a dress?" Inability is expressed by the negator preceding the complete verb, e.g. "I cannot speak Rama". Preverbs Rama has preverbs which form constructions comparable to English phrasal verbs such as "run away", "come over", "carry on" etc. The Rama preverbs resemble some of the postpositions in form: they are and . Like English phrasal verbs, the meanings and uses of Rama preverb constructions can be quite idiomatic and unpredictable. Preverbs precede the subject prefix if present: "I ran away from (him/her)" ( "run" with the preverb "from": is the subject prefix). "They brought the wild pig to the town" ( "come with, i.e. bring"). "Who took the child?" ( "go with, i.e. take"). While many preverb-verb combinations are lexically specified, may also be used productively to express an instrumental argument, e.g. "That's why we have tongs, in order to roast meat with (them)" (therefore tongs we-have, meat for-we-roast-with). Serial verbs A limited range of serial-type constructions are found. A notable case of this is the use of the verb "walk" following another verb, as in: "Men of Rama Cay go to look for manatee in the lagoon" (island from man manatee they-seek walk lagoon side). The morphological analysis of "they go to look for" is: (PREVERB-they-seek walk-PRESENT). The sentence 'Be' and 'have' Noun and adjective predicates are constructed without a copula, in the order Subject + Predicate, e.g. "This is my house" (this my house), "His name is Basilio" (his name Basilio), "The manatee is a big animal" (manatee animal big), "My house is pretty" (my house pretty); so also "That cat is mine" and "My cat is for killing rats". The Subject + Predicate order is inverted in a question such as "What is his name?" The verb "stay" is used to express "be (in a place)" and "be (in a state)", as in "The school is on the south side" (school south side in stay), "I am fine" (I well stay). can also mean "live (in a place)" as in "I live on Rama Cay" (I island in stay), and "there is" as in "There are many houses on Rama Cay" (house many island in stay). The verb (or ) means "have", e.g. "I have two sisters" (I sister two have), "That's why we have tongs", "The octopus has many arms". Word order with verbal predicates In sentences with a verb as predicate, the basic order