This lesson is part of the Beginner Chamorro learning path.

In this lesson, we’ll look at how to show who is doing an action in a sentence. Up to now, we’ve mostly used pronouns like he, she, and it so you could focus on learning verbs and word order. Now we’ll put that knowledge to use with sentences like “The woman drank the coffee,” where the subject—the one doing the action—is a noun. We’ll build sentences in the past, present, and future so you can practice the patterns for including a person as the doer of the action. Every Chamorro example comes with audio so you can hear how it all sounds. Happy studying!

Contents

1. Introduction to Noun Subjects
2. How to Say “The woman bought the coffee”
3. How to Say “The woman is buying the coffee”
4. How to Say “The woman will buy the coffee”
5. ➡️ Keep Learning! Continue to the Next Lesson
6. Documentation & Further Study
   1. Notes
   2. References
   3. Further Reading

Introduction to Noun Subjects

When we say sentences like “The woman drank the coffee” or “The woman made the coffee,” we’re creating action sentences where a noun is the subject — the one doing the action.

Chamorro has several different ways to build sentences when a noun is doing an action to someone or something else. This variety is one reason the language has so many sentence patterns — the way we arrange an action sentence often depends on who or what is doing the action and who or what is receiving it.¹

In this lesson, we’ll focus on the pattern where a person is doing an action to a noun (a person, place or thing).

In this lesson, we’ll practice patterns for making the following sentences:

• Talking about past actions: “The woman bought the coffee”
• Talking about current actions: “The woman is buying the coffee”
• Talking about future actions: “The woman will buy the coffee”

To make these sentences, we’ll build on the action sentence patterns you’ve already learned. If you’d like a quick review before moving on, you can revisit the posts below.

How to Say “The woman bought the coffee”

First we will learn how to add noun subjects to past tense sentences. For these sentences, there are actually two places we can put our noun subject:

1. After the verb
2. Before the verb

We’ll practice both of these patterns.

In the first sentence structure, we simply add i + Noun after our transitive verb. Note that even though we are adding a noun subject, we must still put the pronoun at the front of the sentence:

Ha + Transitive Verb + [ i + Noun ] + [ i + Noun ]

Let’s get used to this pattern with just i palao’an as the subject, i kafé as the object, and different transitive verbs:

Transitive Verb	Chamoru	English
fåhån	Ha fåhan i palao’an i kafé.	The woman bought the coffee.
gimen	Ha gimen i palao’an i kafé.	The woman drank the coffee.
chule’	Ha chule’ i palao’an i kafé.	The woman took the coffee.
taña	Ha taña i palao’an i kafé.	The woman tasted the coffee.
fa’tinas	Ha fa’tinas i palao’an i kafé.	The woman made the coffee.

📝Order Can Vary in Native Speech: We practiced a word order where the doer of the action comes right after the action, just to keep things simple while learning. But in natural Chamorro speech, you might also hear the sentence arranged like Ha gimen i kafé i palao’an, where the doer comes at the end.

In the second world order, we put the i + Noun before the pronoun. This sentence structure looks like this:

[ i + Noun ] + Ha + Transitive Verb + [ i + Noun ]

And let’s practice this sentence structure with the same sentences from above, but in the new word order:

Transitive Verb	Chamoru	English
fåhån	I palao’an ha fåhån i kafé.	The woman bought the coffee.
gimen	I palao’an ha gimen i kafé.	The woman drank the coffee.
chule’	I palao’an ha chule’ i kafé.	The woman took the coffee.
taña	I palao’an ha taña i kafé.	The woman tasted the coffee.
fa’tinas	I palao’an ha fa’tinas i kafé.	The woman made the coffee.

And now let’s look at a few more examples for variety. We’ll be using both sentence structures for practice:

Chamoru	English
Ha atan i taotao i pilan.	The person looked at the moon.
Ha ayek i kákanta i dandan.	The singer chose the music.
Ha bende i guagualo’ i tinekcha’.	The farmer sold the fruit.
Ha fa’gåsi i biha i magågu.	The elderly woman washed the clothing.
Ha faisen i patgon i tituge’.	The child asked the writer.
I fafacho’cho’ ha hokka’ i basula.	The worker picked up the trash.
I fafa’nå’gue ha hasso i lalai.	The teacher remembered the chant.
I tata ha håtsa i patgon.	The father lifted up the child.
I kusineru ha nginge’ i kaddo’.	The chef smelled the soup.
I nieta ha tuge’ i estoria.	The granddaughter wrote the story.

How to Say “The woman is buying the coffee”

Now let’s look at bringing these sentences into the present or continuous tense. We will use the same structure as our past tense sentences, but with transitive verbs that are transformed with reduplication. The noun subject can go either after the verb or before the verb.

Let’s practice the first word order where the noun subject comes after the verb:

Ha + Reduplicated Transitive Verb + [ i + Noun ] + [ i + Noun ]

For some sentence drills, here are sentences that use the same subject, i palao’an, and the same object, i kafé, with different verbs:

Transitive Verb	Chamoru	English
fåfåhån	Ha fåfåhån i palao’an i kafé.	The woman is buying the coffee.
gígimen	Ha gígimen i palao’an i kafé.	The woman is drinking the coffee.
chúchule’	Ha chùchule’ i palao’an i kafé.	The woman is taking the coffee.
tátaña	Ha tátaña i palao’an i kafé.	The woman is tasting the coffee.
fa’títinas	Ha fa’títinas i palao’an i kafé.	The woman is making the coffee.

Now we will practice the second world order, where the subject is put in front of our pronoun ha:

[ i + Noun ] + Ha + Reduplicated Transitive Verb + [ i + Noun ]

Here are sentence drills to help us practice this sentence order, which has i palao’an as the subject and i kafé as the subject, with different verbs:

Transitive Verb	Chamoru	English
fåfåhån	I palao’an ha fåfåhan i kafé.	The woman is buying the coffee.
gígimen	I palao’an ha gígimen i kafé.	The woman is drinking the coffee.
chúchule’	I palao’an ha chùchule’ i kafé.	The woman is taking the coffee.
tátaña	I palao’an ha tátaña i kafé.	The woman is tasting the coffee.
fa’títinas	I palao’an ha fa’títinas i kafé.	The woman is making the coffee.

📝Tense Interpretation: In the examples above, I’m translating these sentences as actions happening right now, meaning the subject is currently doing the action. But it’s helpful to know that in Chamorro, this kind of reduplication can also describe actions that happen regularly. In English, this would be like saying She drinks coffee, She buys coffee, or She makes coffee — habits rather than actions happening in the moment.

Now let’s practice with a wider variety of examples:

Chamoru	English
Ha á’atan i taotao i pilan.	The person is looking at the moon.
Ha á’ayek i kákanta i dandan.	The singer is choosing the music.
Ha bébende i guagualo’ i tinekcha’.	The farmer is selling the fruit.
Ha fa’gågåsi i biha i magågu.	The elderly woman is washing the clothing.
Ha fáfaisen i patgon i tituge’.	The child is asking the writer.
I fafacho’cho’ ha hóhokka’ i basula.	The worker is picking up the trash.
I fafa’nå’gue ha háhasso i lalai.	The teacher is remembering the chant.
I tata ha håhåtsa i patgon.	The father is lifting up the child.
I kusineru ha ngínginge’ i kaddo’.	The chef is smelling the soup.
I nieta ha tútuge’ i estoria.	The granddaughter is writing the story.

How to Say “The woman will buy the coffee”

Now we will add noun subjects to our future tense sentences. In these sentences, we will put the subject before the future tense marker para u. We’ll use this sentence structure:

[ I + Noun ] + para u + Transitive Verb + [ i + Noun ]

As a reminder, the subject is the noun that comes before the future marker, and the object is the noun that comes after the verb.

To practice, let’s use the same subject i palao’an and the same object, i kafé and make some future tense statements:

Transitive Verb	Chamoru	English
fåhån	I palao’an para u fåhån kafé.	The woman will buy the coffee.
gimen	I palao’an para u gimen i kafé.	The woman will drink the coffee.
chule’	I palao’an para u chule’ i kafé.	The woman will take the coffee.
taña	I palao’an para u tañai kafé.	The woman will taste the coffee.
fa’tinas	I palao’an para u fa’tinas i kafé.	The woman will make the coffee.

Now let’s look at a variety of examples:

Chamoru	English
I taotao para u atan i pilan.	The taotao will look at the moon.
I kákanta para u ayek i dandan.	The singer will choose the music.
I guagualo’ para u bende i tinekcha’.	The farmer will sell the fruit.
I biha para u fa’gåsi i magågu.	The elderly woman will wash the clothing.
I patgon para u faisen i tituge’.	The child will ask the writer.
I fafacho’cho’ para u hokka’ i basula.	The worker will pick up the trash.
I fafa’nå’gue para u hasso i lalai.	The teacher will remember the chant.
I tata para u håtsa i patgon.	The father will lift up the child.
I kusineru para u nginge’ i kaddo’.	The chef will smell the soup.
I nieta para u tuge’ i estoria.	The granddaughter will write the story.

➡️ Keep Learning! Continue to the Next Lesson

And that concludes this set of notes on adding noun subjects to our basic transitive sentences. If you would like to learn how to add noun subjects to basic intransitive sentences, click the link below:

How to Say “The Woman Danced” in Chamorro – Using Nouns as the Subject with Intransitive Verbs

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Documentation & Further Study

Notes

1. Sandra Chung, Chamorro Grammar (2020), 353. ↩︎

References

Chung, S. (2020). Chamorro grammar. http://dx.doi.org/10.48330/E2159R Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2sx7w4h5.

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.

Further Reading

Chung, S. “Chapter 16 Information Packaging.” In Chamorro Grammar, 353-370. http://dx.doi.org/10.48330/E2159R Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2sx7w4h5

Topping, D. M., & Dungca, B. C. “Transitive Sentence.” In Chamorro Reference Grammar, 237-238. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1973.

Topping, D.M. “GRAMMAR NOTE.” In Spoken Chamorro: With Grammatical Notes and Glossary (Second Edition), 84. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1980.