-ʼo

Taking Away: -ʼo

Level 5

-ʼo makes a verb from a noun: pireʼo “to skin”, hogueʼo “to strip the leaves off”.

How It Works

Most Guarani roots can be a noun one moment and a verb the next. -ʼo is different, because it is the one ending that turns a noun into a verb. The new verb means to remove the thing that the noun names.

NounVerb
pire “skin”pireʼo “to skin”
nambi “ear”nambiʼo “to cut an animal’s ears”
juru “mouth”juruʼo “to open”
ky “louse”kyʼo “to delouse”
kyra “grease”kyraʼo “to take the grease off”

The ending is stressed. When another ending follows it, the acute mark goes on ʼó: ojepireʼóvo “while they shed their skin”.

Other endings come after -ʼo. In Poʼakãʼoukapáta the pieces are po- “I … you all”, ʼakã “head”, -ʼo, -uka “have it done”, -pa “all” and -ta “will”.

Examples (3)

  1. Tejukuéra ojepireʼóvo, osẽ jevy ichupekuéra ipire pyahu.

    When lizards shed their skin, new skin comes out on them again.

    Pire “skin” plus -ʼo means “take the skin off”, and je- leaves out who does it, so the skin simply comes off. The acute goes on ʼó.

  2. Kañõ rendyvu oñakãʼo Florentín Oviedo kavaju.

    The cannon blast beheaded the horse of Florentín Oviedo.

    Ñakãʼo is “to behead”. The -ʼo goes on ñakã, the shape that akã “head” takes as a verb.

  3. Poʼakãʼoukapáta!

    I will have all your heads cut off!

    -ʼo comes first, then -uka, -pa and -ta.

Common Mistakes

  • Leaving off the acute mark when an ending follows -ʼo.

    Tejukuéra ojepireʼovo.
    Tejukuéra ojepireʼóvo.

    -ʼo is stressed and -vo is not, so the acute mark goes on ó.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

-ʼoLevel 5Taking Away: -ʼo

Learn This First

The ending -ʼo makes a verb from a noun, so learners need to know that a root can be a noun.

Words in This Pattern

pire