Poswa particles and minor parts of speech

Almost all words in Poswa sentences are either nouns or verbs. Many concepts that are expressed by particles or conjunctions in English are replaced by verbs in Poswa, or appear as inflections rather than separate words. Furthermore, even though particles are considered a separate part of speech, they can also be analyzed as verbs which occur in clause-initial position and therefore trigger a rule inherited from late Play in which verbs in clause-initial position retain the archaic -p -s -Ø person markers instead of the modern -o -e -a, and in modern Poswa are used only in the third person. This analysis makes sense because in the rare cases where a particle appears at the end of a clause, it has a modern verb marker on.

Particles occurring in isolation

The question particle pu

The word pu means "or", but is generally not used alone unless it is at the end of a sentence, in which case its meaning would be better translated into English as "..., right?", "..., yes?", or by simply adding a question mark.

Pampappepe pipopebe, pu?

You couldn't find your cellphone, right?

Note that this is not a contradiction of the above statement that particles in clause-final position need person markers because it is offset from the clause by a comma and thus forms a clause of its own. However, it may be that this word can appear attached to the verb with no pause and still not require a person marker.

Particles occurring in pairs

wi ... wa

The particle pair wi ... wa expresses the meaning of "if ... then" in English. Note that wa used alone means "and; with; accompanying", but is not generally used in the sense that it would be in English. Thus

Wi bumptuspup pappap, wa swub.

If I swallow the medicine, then I will sleep.

note, due to Khulls, the expected cognate here would be ši...wa.

pa ... pa

The particle pair pa ... pa expresses the meaning of "either ... or" in English.

Pa nobellieppub, pa wiwiabub.

Either I get your ice cream, or I beat you up.

It is not certain whether these should also be /pu/.

Preverbal particles

See Poswa_verbs#Non-accusative_verbs.