jeff_l
(Jeff_L)
#1
260 5 Noun phrase structure
gazelle', a-saerol-annet 'his/her young ram', and a-kasbor-annasm 'your-FeSg
sparrow' (from a-lsemom, a-saerol, a-kaebor).
Possessor suffixes are added to the last element in the core NP, which
includes demonstratives. Any "adjectives" or other relative clauses follow
(249).
(249) a. t-a-s-avnas-t ta-di-dsY-annsem
Fe-Sg-Instr-veil-FeSg Fe-NearDist-Anaph-2FeSgPoss
dale-t
be.green-Partpl.FeSg
'that blue veil of yours' [K]
b. w-en-dcieY-in
Ma-Dist-Anaph-lSgPoss
'as concerns me' (lit. "those of mine") [K]
See also the predicate genitive construction of type 1-nin 'it is mine' in
§9.4.
NP's of the type 'mine' (= 'the one that belongs to me', Fr le mien) can be
formed by adding the postvocalic endings in (248) to the appropriate gender-
number form of a simple demonstrative, generally MaSg w-ά 'this' (MaPl w-i,
FeSg t-ά, FePl t-ί), as in most definite relative clauses. Thus w-a-nin 'mine',
w-a-nnaek 'yours-Ma', w-a-naewaen 'yours-MaPl', etc.
5.2.3 Inalienable possessive suffixes with certain kin terms
For the most part, the pronominal possessive suffixes in §5.2.2, just above, are
used with semantically inalienable as well as alienable nouns. They occur, for
example, with body-part nouns. Among kin terms, however, there are two
morphological patterns. Some nouns take the regular possessive suffixes.
Examples in (250).
(250) Kin Terms with Regular Pronominal Possessive Sufffix
gloss stem example
'mother' άηηα, anna anna-nin 'my...'
'father' abba, abba abbä-nin 'my...'
'FaSiSo' as-bdbas ae-babas-in 'my...'
Further kin terms of this regular type are ae-bdbas 'cross-cousin', a-jaeya
'great grandson', a-daeggal 'father- or son-in-law', and α-laggas 'brother-in-
law'. This is also the pattern for "kin" terms that are just special uses of
ordinary nouns in possessed form (e.g. 'child', 'man', 'woman').
