Authority-grounded encyclopedic record
ababagüdagua
derived form
to make something spotted or speckled oneself/each other; to constantly make something spotted or speckled
Meaning & authority
Evidence state: SOURCE-ATTESTED LEXICAL SENSE
Teaching authority: rules: MARAGAÑ (Shaka) MAGARADA + cited academic laws; engine v2 glass-box
How this word is built
Root: ababagüda — To make something spotted or speckled
- OP:GUA — see LAW_CODEX_v2.1 · OP:GUA
- LARSEN:GWA_VALENCY — see LAW_CODEX_v2.1 · LARSEN:GWA_VALENCY
middle-reflexive [OP:GUA]
LARSEN:GWA_VALENCY [LARSEN:GWA_VALENCY]
Applied laws: OP:GUA · LARSEN:GWA_VALENCY
Why this matters
Why — Middle/reflexive ('to X oneself / each other'); Director also rules a continuous reading ('to constantly X': adügagua 'to constantly make'). Distinct from -wa 1PL object ('us': eigawa 'eat us'). (Magarada map + §5; Unit II (massive)) [PRINCIPLES-ONLY — paraphrased]
Why — -gwa reduces transitive valency: reflexive (patient suffix replaced by -gwa, erstwhile patient promoted to prefix; followed by the oblique ún-gwa 'to-self'), reciprocal (partial A/P overlap), anticausative (only P remains). Often surfaces as -gu through morphophonology; -gúwa when stressed. (Haurholm-Larsen, S. (2016). A Grammar of Garifuna. PhD diss., Univ. of Bern (collection upload 2026-07-17, full permission/attribution) §6.1.1 exx.169) [PRINCIPLES-ONLY — paraphrased]