or not it is complete. /tʃʼày/ "to lose" (transitive verb) or "to be lost" (intransitive verb) /kʼàhkʼ/ "fire" (noun) or "hot" (adjective) /kʼòk/ "to cut" (transitive verb) or "to be cut" (intransitive verb) /mès/ "broom" (noun) or "to sweep" (transitive verb) /pùl/ "to pour out" (transitive verb) or "to gush forth" (intransitive verb) /tùpʼ/ "to put out/extinguish" (transitive verb) or "to go out/be extinguished" (intransitive verb) /tʼìm/ "bow" (noun) or "to stretch a string" (transitive verb) /yàk/ "snare" (noun) or "to snare" (transitive verb) /ʔùtʃʼ/ "to drink" (transitive verb), "to drink" (intransitive verb), or "louse" (noun) Typical phonetic shapes of morphemes As is typical of the Mayan languages, the majority of Tzeltal roots are monosyllabic. The basic structure is CVC or CVhC, and most longer words can be analyzed in terms of an affixed CVC or CVhC root. The following forms are the most common, in which C represents any consonant (unless otherwise indicated), and in which V represents any vowel: Verbs Conjugated verbs include at least a transitive or intransitive theme (formed from either an unaffixed root or a root with derivational affixes), one person marker (if transitive) or two (if intransitive), and an aspectual mark (which can be a zero-mark in the case of intransitive verbs with imperfective aspect). Verbs are also the only part of speech to take aspectual markers. In almost every case, these markers differ between transitive and intransitive verbs, a difference further systematized by the ergative-absolutive case system. Among the affixes shared by both transitive and intransitive verbs are -el (derives a verbal noun, similar to an infinitive marker), and the lexical aspect suffixes -(V)lay (iterative aspect marker), and -tilay (expresses plurality of action). For example, the verb tam ("collect") may be affixed to tam-tilay-el ("to collect multiple scattered objects"), and the verb way ("sleep") can be affixed to way-ulay-el ("to sleep without waking"). Transitive verbs marked with -el are interpreted as having passive voice. To create a transitive, active infinitive, the -el suffix is used along with a third-person ergative prefix which must agree with the subject of the verb. Thus, the transitive verb le ("look for") could be affixed as le-el ("to be looked for") and as s-le-el ("to look (for something)/looking for something"). Alternatively, a transitive infinitive can be expressed with the suffix -bel to the verbal theme; notably, these forms are fully inflected for ergative and absolutive cases. Thus the