194 Chapter 7 Nominals and noun phrases
(59) Roma-na guru ce' raja-na.
house-DEF teacher very big-DEF
‘The teacher’s house is very large.’
Except for the first person possessive pronoun, which precedes the possessed
noun (57), possessors follow the noun they possess, as in (58), where ba'eng
‘you’ follows buku ‘book’, and (59), in which guru ‘teacher’ follows the head
noun roma ‘house’. In all instances of non-first person possession marked in an
NP, the definite suffix is obligatory.
Clause level possessive constructions are treated in Chapter 6.
6. Quantifiers
The basic quantifier expressions of Madurese are:
(60) kabbi ‘all’
bannya' ‘many’
sabban ‘each’
sakone' ‘a few’
dhiddhi' ‘a few’
banne ‘no’
para ‘all’
pan-barampan ‘several’
Of these, only pan-barampan ‘several’ is derived, the reduplicated form of ba-
rampa ‘how much/many’ with the -n extension. Quantifiers precede or follow
the noun they quantify. There are preferences depending on where the quanti-
fied noun phrase occurs in the sentence. There is a slight preference among
some speakers for the quantifier kabbi ‘all’ to precede the noun it quantifies,
regardless of where it occurs in the sentence.
(61) Kabbi mored lulus tes.
all student pass test
‘All the students passed the test.’
(62) Dhokter rowa mareksa kabbi na'-kana'.
doctor that AV.examine all RED-child
‘The doctor examined all the children.’
But it is perfectly acceptable for kabbi to follow the noun it quantifies, as in
(63) and (64).