Editing Lenape Language (section)

== Grammar and Structure ==

Like other Algonquian languages, Lenape is polysynthetic, meaning that complex ideas can be expressed in single words through the combination of multiple meaningful elements. Verbs in Lenape are particularly elaborate, incorporating information about the subject, object, tense, aspect, and other grammatical categories that would require separate words in English. For example, a single Lenape verb might convey the meaning "I will see him again tomorrow" through a combination of prefixes and suffixes attached to a verb root. This grammatical complexity allowed for precise and nuanced expression but presented significant challenges for European missionaries and scholars attempting to learn and document the language.<ref name="oleary">{{cite journal |last=O'Meara |first=John |title=Delaware-English/English-Delaware Dictionary |year=1996 |publisher=University of Toronto Press}}</ref>

Lenape nouns are classified as either animate or inanimate, a distinction that affects verb agreement and other grammatical patterns. This classification does not always correspond to English-speaking intuitions about what is "alive"—for instance, some plants and natural phenomena are grammatically animate in Lenape. The language also features an obviative system that distinguishes between third-person referents, allowing speakers to track multiple characters in a narrative without ambiguity. Word order in Lenape is relatively flexible compared to English, with grammatical relationships indicated primarily through the complex verb morphology rather than word position.<ref name="mithun"/>