[2] Rama phonotactics includes notable consonant clusters at the beginning of words (e.g. psaarik "toucan", tkua "hot", nkiikna "man", mlingu "killed") and word-internally (e.g. alkwsi "speaks", salpka "fish").
Variations among speakers witness a tendency to simplify such clusters (e.g. nkiikna or kiikna "man", nsu- or su- "we, us, our").
For example, when the third person singular subject prefix i- and the past tense suffix -u are added to the verb stem kwis "eat", thus: i- + kwis + -u, the verb stem loses its only vowel, resulting in the form ikwsu "he/she/it ate".
In terms of grammatical typology Rama may be considered a fairly "normal" language for the linguistic area within which it is located, despite the lack of close genetic ties with its immediate neighbours.
A single set of prefixes serves to express both pronominal possessors (e.g. n-up "my eye") and subjects (e.g. n-taaku "I went").
Nouns are frequently undetermined, e.g. Pkaak tkii su itraali "(The) lizard walks on (the) ground" (literally: lizard ground on (s)he-walks), Salpka sauk u ikuu "He/she caught (a) fish with (a) hook" (fish hook with (s)he-caught).
Most nouns do not change for number, but those denoting humans can take the plural suffix -dut or -lut, as in kiiknadut "men", kumaalut "women", tiiskamalut "children", etc.
[5] In other cases (including kinship relations), a genitive pronoun (formed from the pronominal prefix + -aing) precedes the possessed noun, e.g. naing puus / nguu / aak / tiiskama / taata / tairung "my cat / house / name / child / father / sister", maing kaulingdut "your family (lit.
also function predicatively (as equivalents of English possessive pronouns), as in Naming puus naing "That cat is mine".
The independent pronouns are often used as subjects: Nah tawan ki aakar "I live in Bluefields" (I town in stay), Maa kalma apaakut?
They may also be complements of postpositions: Naing airung ning nguu ki aakar nah u "My mother lives in this house with me" (my mother this house in stay I with), maa kang "from you", Walsa anut su tabiu "The tiger came out at them" (tiger they at came-out).
The prefix forms of the pronouns are used as subject prefixes with verbs: Neli aa nitangu "I gave it to Nelly" (Nelly OBJECT I-gave), Tamaik suulikaas niaukut "Tomorrow I will cook some meat" (tomorrow meat I-will-cook), Taa u mtaaku?
They are also commonly absent in the presence of a full subject noun phrase: Naing taata taaki "My father is going", but "repetition" of the subject is also possible: Pkaak tkii su itraali "The lizard (he) walks on the ground" (lizard ground on it-walks).
Rama postpositions perform roughly the same functions as English prepositions, as in tkii su "on the ground", tawan ki "in (the) town", nah u "with me", nguu aing "of the house", etc.
The simplest structure for verb forms consists of these elements: e.g. Nah tawan ki aakar "I live in Bluefields" (no subject prefix and no tense suffix), Yaing taak-i "He/She is going" (no subject prefix, present tense suffix), Taa u m-taak-u?
This basic structure may be expanded by adding other elements, including aspect markers (which come between the stem and the tense/mood suffix) and preverbs (which precede the subject prefix, if present).
Using the simple past tense of kwis "eat", the sentence Kruubu kiikna kwisu means "The tiger ate the man", but the "manner of eating" may be specified further to express completion of the action by adding to the stem kwis the aspect marker -atkul, giving Kruubu kiikna kwisatkulu "The tiger ate the man all up".
Further examples with -atkul- are: Dor yakaangatkulu "He/she shut the door tight" (akaang "close") and Paalpa ansungatkulu "They saw the whole manatee" (sung "see").
Several of these involve the verb aakar "stay" or its derivative baakar (which contains the preverb ba-), either of which, following a verb stem, may convey progressive aspect: Nah paun baakiri "I am crying" (paun "cry"; the second vowel in aakar can copy the vowel of the suffix).
The suffix -bang (see also above) may express intention, as in Tiiskama nitanangbang "I am going to look at the baby" (tanang "look at"), and in first person plural imperatives (i.e. "let's..."), as in Nsukamibang!
A verb with the -kama suffix may be used in an independent clause to convey obligation: Tiiskiba umling taakkama skuul ki "All the children must go to school".
Rama has preverbs which form constructions comparable to English phrasal verbs such as "run away", "come over", "carry on" etc.
Ngulkang tawan ki yuansiiku "They brought the wild pig to the town" (yu-siik "come with, i.e. bring").
A notable case of this is the use of the verb traal "walk" following another verb, as in: Ipang ika kiikna paalpa baanalpi traali lakun aik "Men of Rama Cay go to look for manatee in the lagoon" (island from man manatee they-seek walk lagoon side).
Many verb stems are made up of extensions from primary roots by the addition of one of the prefixes al- and aa-, which often correlate with intransitive and transitive meanings respectively.
Evident intransitive derivation with al- is illustrated by the pairs maling "kill" : almaling "die", aark : alaark "break (tr./intr.)"
)", while other cases of outward resemblance are semantically opaque, e.g. kwis "eat" and alkwis "speak", or involve more complex relationships, e.g. aap (i.e. aa- + p) "find" and baalp (ba- [preverb] + al + p "seek".
A notable example is -up, which occurs as the last component in nouns many of which denote round objects, fruits or body parts.
Partial or complete reduplication is seen in the forms of some words, including onomatopoeics such as tahtah "dripping", animal names like ngaukngauk "spider" or tkwustkwus "rabbit", colour names and other descriptive adjectives such as nuknuknga "yellow", ngarngaringba "green", siksiknga "speckled", kingkingma "calm", and others, e.g. tiskitiski "a little".
Some recorded words that were claimed to be from the Corobicí language are actually from a dialect of Rama spoken in the region of Upala.