Talking About Actions Without Objects in Chamorro – Introduction to Intransitive Verbs and Affixes

This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

In this lesson, we’ll begin learning how to talk about actions that aren’t done to anyone or anything else—actions like standing, walking, or dancing. These are everyday activities that people simply do. To use these action words in Chamorro sentences, the word often needs to change form first. We’ll take a closer look at how these changes work and why they matter. Understanding these patterns will help you start forming action sentences with these words and will prepare you for many of the sentence patterns you’ll encounter later in the language. Happy studying!

Last Updated: March 26, 2026

Contents

Introduction to Actions Without Objects

When we say things like “I am standing,” “We are walking,” or “They are dancing,” we are using action words called intransitive verbs. These are actions that we don’t need to do to another person or thing—in other words, actions without objects.

To form sentences with these action words in Chamorro, the verb usually needs to change form first. We were introduced to one type of change—reduplication—when talking about ongoing actions (for example, “I am drinking the coffee”). However, reduplication is only one of several ways Chamorro reshapes words.

In this lesson, we’ll focus on how Chamorro changes action words and how these changes help us build complete sentences. Understanding these patterns will prepare you to use these verbs more confidently and will lay important groundwork for later lessons.

Specifically, we’ll learn:

The main types of word changes (also called affixes)
How affixes allow us to create multiple meanings from a single word
The most common changes used with intransitive verbs

Chamorro Word Transformations

When we transform words in Chamorro, we use affixes, which are small word parts that we attach to words to create new words. Affixes can be attached to the beginning, end, or in the middle of the word. You can attach one affix to a word, or you can attach multiple affixes at once, effectively “stacking” them to create many new words.

There are 4 types of affixes:

Prefix: These are attached at the beginning of a word.
Suffix: These are attached at the end of a word.
Infix: These are attached in the middle of a word, and in Chamorro they are always placed in front of the first vowel of the word.
Reduplication: When a certain syllable is repeated in a word.

❓Why Are Word Transformations Important in Chamorro? Word transformations allow us to express a wider range of ideas in Chamorro. At the beginner level, we mainly use them to talk about actions in the past, present, and future. As you continue learning, you’ll see that these changes do much more—they expand what you can say by allowing complex meanings to be carried within a single word, or for more nuanced ideas to be framed in different thought structures.

In the next section, we’ll take a look at one word—fa’tinas—and see what it looks like when we transform it to create new words with different meanings.

Transformation Example: One Word, Many Possibilities

To illustrate how affixes work, let’s take the word fa’tinas (“to make”) and transform it with different affixes.

At this point, it’s not important to memorize the affixes or words in the table below. Just focus on getting a sense for what word transformations can look like in Chamorro, and how the meaning of a base word can be changed.

The affix is shown in bold, to help you see the placements:

Affix	New Word	New Definition
-in-	fina’tinas	(1) the thing made. (2) was made
-i	fa’tinasi	to make for someone
ma-	mafa’tinas	was made
man- + ma-	manmafa’tinas	was made (3+ items)
man-	mama’tinas	made (indefinite)
man- + reduplication	mama’títinas	making (indefinite)
man- + man-	manmama’tinas	made (indefinite, 3+ doers)
na-	na’fa’tinas	to cause to make
-um-	fuma’tinas	made (emphatic)
na- + -um-	muna‘fa’tinas	caused to make
fan-	fama’tinas	make something (indefinite)
fan- + man-	fanmama’tinas	make something (indefinite, 3+)
-ñaihon	fa’tinasñaihon	make for a little while; make quickly

Some of these forms carry their own meanings, and many of them are used in specific sentence patterns to convey different nuanced thoughts that reflect how the Chamorro language expresses itself.

As you get deeper into the language, you will see that affixes are used almost constantly. This is why learning Chamorro can be so difficult. Words are always transformed, but they are often missing from our dictionaries.

💡“Root Word Finder” Learning Tool: As you immerse yourself in the Chamorro language, you’ll run into more and more transformed words that are often missing from our dictionaries.

In those situations, try out this word analyzer to find the root word: https://guamlinguistics.com/morph/ This tool is not perfect and sometimes it deconstructs words incorrectly or not at all, but it can still be a helpful resource for breaking words down.

Common Transformations for Beginners

In this section, we will go over the most common word transformations used with intransitive verbs, which are helpful for beginners to know. These word transformations are:

UM Infix
Ma- Prefix (for certain verbs)
No Transformation
Plural Man- Prefix

If this section still feels very theoretical, please don’t worry — we’ll be using these transformations in plenty of practice sentences in the upcoming lessons.

UM Infix

One of the most common word transformations in Chamorro is the UM Infix. Most intransitive verbs are transformed with this infix so they can be used in action sentences.

How to Transform With “UM”: Put “UM” in front of the first vowel of the word.

Let’s practice transforming a few verbs with UM. The UM Infix is in bold, so you can see the placement in each word.

Root Word	+ UM	Definition
tohge	tumohge	stood up
chålek	chumålek	laughed
deskånsa	dumeskånsa	rested
kånta	kumånta	sang
hånao	humånao	went
åsson	umåsson	laid down
såga	sumåga	stayed
tånges	tumånges	cried
essalao	umessalao	shouted

MA- Prefix

Some intransitive verbs do not use UM. Instead, they use the MA- prefix to put them in the appropriate form to be used in action sentences.

Some common verbs that take this transformation are shown below:

Root Word	MA- Prefix	Definition
cho’cho’	macho’cho’	worked
tå’chong	matå’chong	sat down
fondo	mafondo	sunk
pokkat	mamokkat	walked
udai	ma‘udai	rode

No Transformation

Finally, there are some intransitive verbs that do not require an affix before being used in an action sentence. You can just use them in their root form.

Some of the most commonly used verbs that take this form are shown below:

Intransitive Verb	Definition
malågu	run
maigo’	sleep
måtai	die
makmåta	to wake up
malingu	lost

Plural Man- Prefix

The final prefix that is important to know for intransitive verbs is the plural man- prefix, which is attached to the front of our intransitive verbs when there are 3 or more subjects doing the action.

This prefix will be covered in the intermediate level because using it is a bit more complicated. But it is good for beginners to have an awareness of this prefix, because it is used frequently in native speech.

➡️ Keep Learning! Continue to the Next Lesson

When you’re ready, click the link below to continue to the next lesson in this Beginner Chamorro Series and learn the patterns for using these verbs to talk about actions that have already happened:

How to Say “I Stayed” in Chamorro – Talking in Past Tense With Intransitive Verbs

⬅️ Back to Previous Lesson

📒 Back to Beginner Lessons

Documentation & Further Study

References

Topping, D. M., & Dungca, B. C. Chamorro Reference Grammar (PALI Language Texts―Micronesia). University of Hawaii Press, 1973.

Topping, Donald M. Spoken Chamorro: With Grammatical Notes and Glossary (Second Edition). University of Hawaii Press, 1980.

Lengguahi-ta

Talking About Actions Without Objects in Chamorro – Introduction to Intransitive Verbs and Affixes

Introduction to Actions Without Objects

Chamorro Word Transformations

Transformation Example: One Word, Many Possibilities