Wintu is a moribund Penutian language once spoken in the Sacramento River Valley in Northern California. Presently unexplored is Wintu expression of movement and location. Several avenues exist for nouns and verbs. Nouns receive optional locative suffixation, or location may be implied in the absence of a noun. Verbs may receive locative prefixes and/or an implied trajectory may be inherent to a verb's semantics; inherent location may also be expressed by nouns. In more complicated cases, nouns appear to receive established verbal morphology, or the nominal locative suffix or verbal locative prefixes occur in unusual contexts.

In order to reach primary conclusions, it was necessary to address other difficulties, including nominal aspect, unclear word-class boundaries, inconsistent glossing, lack of native speakers and an overall paucity of information. Primary data consist of texts recorded and transcribed in the 1970s and two English/Wintu dictionaries; analysis was based on forms from these documents.