Verbs The
morphosyntactic alignment of Mixe is
ergative and it also has an
obviative system which serves to distinguish between verb participants in reference to its
direct–inverse system. The Mixe
verb is complex and inflects for many categories and also shows a lot of derivational
morphology. One of the parameters of verb inflection is whether a verb occurs in an independent or dependent clause; this distinction is marked by both differential affixation and stem
ablaut. Unlike Sayultec Mixe (spoken in the neighboring state of Veracruz), Mixe languages of Oaxaca only mark one argument on the verb: either the object or the subject of the verb depending on whether the verb is in the direct or inverse form. Mixe shows a wide variety of possibilities for
noun incorporation.
Nouns The Mixe noun does not normally inflect, except that human nouns inflect for plural. Noun compounding is a very productive process, and the profuse derivational morphology allows for creation of new nouns both from verbs and from other nouns. To indicate the plural an enclitic, ëch, is added to the noun.
Syntax Mixe languages have SOV constituent order. Prepositions and genitives precede the noun, but relative clauses follow the noun. ==Sample==