184 R- M. W. Dixon
TABLE 2. Structure of the noun phrase
A. Alienable possessor, an embedded NP, plus possessive marker kaa (kinship possession
is a special sub-type of alienable possession).
B. Head of NP (the only obligatory constituent).
This can be a common noun; a pronoun; an interrogative; one/owa 'another'; a comple-
ment clause (see (17)); a proper noun; or a demonstrative.
Modifiers to B:
- Bi, a noun referring to sex (fana 'female' or maki 'male') or to material (e.g. jati
'stone', awa 'wood'); - Bii, one or more adjectives;
- Biii, augment modifier mee.
C. One or more Possessed Nouns (PNs).
Modifiers to a PN at C: - Ci, one or more adjectives.
D. Contrastive marker taa.
E. Accusative suffix -ra—an archaic feature found productively only in the speech of two
old shamans, both now dead; examples (7) and (9) are from them.
Note: In addition an NP may occasionally include one or more of a limited set of mood, tense/eviden-
tial, modal, and miscellaneous predicate suffixes; the intention suffix is used in (9) and the future suf-
fix in (loa-b).
The other exception concerns augment modifier mee, in slot Biii. This is dia-
chronically—but not synchronically—related to the 3nsg pronoun mee (see
Table i). When mee occurs within an NP it marks nsg number and (like 3nsg pro-
noun mee) engenders f gender agreement on verbal suffixes (irrespective of the
gender of the head noun).
There are several interesting properties of NPs. A pronoun can function freely
at slot A in an NP, as alienable possessor, but in slot B (as head of the NP) only
when there is a following PN. That is, a pronoun cannot on its own make up an NP.
In keeping with this, all NPs count as 3rd person. That is, something like o-mano
(isg o- as NP head plus PN mano 'arm') 'my arm' counts as 3rd person and so too
does ee nafi 'all of us (inclusive)' which is an NP with msg.inc pronoun ee as head,
followed by the quantifier PN nafilnafi 'all'. Another properly is that any NP which
includes a PN counts as inanimate. There is detailed discussion of these points in
Dixon (looob), including statements of the criteria for deciding that every NP is
3rd person and that every NP which includes a PN is inanimate.
4.1. GENDER SPECIFICATION ON POSSESSED NOUNS
PNs divide into two classes according to the form of a isg or isg inalienable pos-
sessor (in the head slot of the NP). One class takes o- and ti- and the other class
takes oko and tika. For example:
o-teme 'my foot' but oko jehene 'my fat'
o-taboro 'my home' oko hawine 'my path'