The organisation of this version of the Muna dictionary is stem-based. That means that the Muna headwords (entries) are stems, not roots. A root is the smallest or simplest part of the word, whereas a stem may have various affixes. For example, the word nofokalada 'he made them go', is based on the stem fokala 'make go', the root of which is kala 'go'.
In order to find a word in the dictionary, most of the prefixes and affixes need to be stripped off to find the stem (especially subject prefixes and object suffixes, but also the infix -um-). But stems containing the prefixes fe-, fo-, ka- and po-, for example, can be found as headwords.
Consider the following examples:
Muna word | meaning | search under | meaning | root |
noalaemo | he/she has taken it | ala | take | ala |
akumala | I will go | kala | go | kala |
defoada | they lend | foada | lend | ada |
dopowise | they face each other | powise | face each other | wise |
Compounds and phrases are also listed as separate entries.