The grammar of Munsee is characterized by complex inflectional and derivational morphology.
Inflection in Munsee is realized through the use of prefixes and suffixes added to word stems to indicate grammatical information, including number (singular or plural), animacy (understood as grammatical gender), person, possession, negation, and obviation.
Verbs use a single set of person prefixes and a series of suffixes in position classes after the verb stem to indicate combinations of person, number, negation, obviation, and other morphological information.
There are three primary word classes in Munsee Delaware: Noun, Verb, and Particle.
Other verb classes are derived from these primary classes: Transitivized Animate Intransitive, Double Object Transitive, and Objectless Transitive Inanimate, exemplified below.
Gender is an inherent property of nouns, but is cross-referenced through agreement in several areas of Munsee grammar.
In addition to being marked inflectionally in plural forms of nouns, gender is also selected for in the formation of verb stems, is marked in agreement in the inflection of verbs, and is realized in sets of pronouns.
Animate nouns in certain constructions may take an obviative ending, which does not distinguish singular or plural.
The obviative distinguishes two third-person referents in certain syntactic and discourse contexts.
Although the exact significance of the proximate versus obviative distinction has been disputed, a general view is that the proximate noun phrase is more in focus, while the obviative is less in focus or backgrounded.
[3] In the following sentence the first word 'woman' is the grammatical object and is marked obviative with the suffix /-al/: oxkwé·wal wə̆ne·wá·wal lénəw 'the man sees the woman' (woman-obviative third-sees-third man-proximate).
[8][page needed] Similarly, some Transitive Animate verbs inflect for a secondary object, forming ditransitive verbs, termed Double Object Transitive: nkəmó·tə̆ma·n 'I stole it from him.'
These correspond roughly to three major clause types: Independent Order, forming main clause statements and questions; Conjunct Order, forming dependent clauses; and Imperative Order, forming positive and negative commands.
Verbs in the Indicative Mode form statements and questions: mpə́ntawa·w 'I heard him'; kpə́ntawa·w há?
(verb stem /po·si·-/ 'get on board' with subordinative inflection for first-person subject) (b) nál wə̆níhla·n 'Then he killed the other.'
The Conjunct Indicative Mode is extremely rare, with only a few examples reported in Unami, and none in Munsee.
The Subjunctive Mode forms clauses referring to hypothetical situations.
[14] (a) e·kwə̆yá·ni·l 'my clothes' (literally 'those things that I wear') (b) é·nta-né·wak 'where I saw him' (c) wé·nk 'he who comes from there' Verbs in the Ordinary Mode make commands of various types, in which the listener is directed to perform or undertake an act.
A category of aspect, used in the Independent and Conjunct Orders, has been distinguished for both Munsee and Unami.
The unspecified has no morphological expression, and hence is equivalent to regularly inflected forms of the verb.
In Munsee the preterite is extremely rare, and is attested primarily in earlier material, such as the following taken from Truman Michelson's field notes (the suffix /-p/ is the realization of the preterite suffix in this form):[16] (a) nĕmi·lá·ne·p 'I gave it to him.'
The present aspect is attested primarily in forms with a counterfactual interpretation that is equivalent in meaning to the subjunctive.
[18][page needed] Personal pronouns are used primarily for emphasis: ní· 'I', kí· 'you (singular), né·ka 'he, she', ni·ló·na 'we (exclusive),' ki·ló·na 'we (inclusive),' ki·ló·wa 'you (plural),' ne·ká·wa 'they.'
In the example kwəšə̆ná·wal hwákayal 'he injures himself' the reflexive pronoun is marked with the obviative suffix /-al/, as is the verb.
Particles are words that are invariant in shape, i.e. they do not occur with any inflectional prefixes or suffixes.
Particles may have a wide variety of meanings, and any organization into semantic classes is arbitrary.
The compound stem created by the prenoun-noun connection functions as one word such that prefixes for possession attach to the beginning of the preverb and suffixes attach to the end of noun.