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 Babakiam in which verbs in clause-initial position retain the archaic -p -s -Ø person markers instead of the modern -o -e -a, and 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 pa

The word pa 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, pa?

You couldn't find your cellphone, right?

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.

Preverbal particles

See Poswa_verbs#Non-accusative_verbs.