jeff_l
(Jeff_L)
#1
5.2 Possession and compounding 261
A handful of kin terms take a special set of pronominal possessive suffixes
given in (251), below. Since these nouns are a subset of the (semantically)
inalienable nouns in the language, for lack of a better term I call these suffixes
inalienable. The stems in question are V-final, so there is only one suffixal
series. All of the suffixes are distinct from their counterparts in the regular
possessive series (§5.2.2, just above). The Ο before some suffixes indicates
that the suffix forces penultimate word accent.
The postconsonantal allomorphs for singular possessors are difficult to
elicit. The inalienable noun stems that end in a C are plural: taey- 'fathers
(of...)' and maessaw- 'owners/masters (of...)', and they normally require
plural possessors, as in täey-naer 'our fathers' and maessaw-kmaet 'your-FePl
masters'. In Tuareg society, one does not easily speak of the 'fathers' or
'masters' of a single person or object. In the case of 'father', the synonym
abba (250) can be used in its plural form (with alienable possessor suffix).
When pressed to combine Sg possessor suffixes with taey- or maessaw-,
informants grudgingly add -(e)v, -k, -m, and -s with no phonological difficulty
but find the combinations awkward. With maessaw- 'owners', I recorded lSg
maessaw-r (T-ka), maessaw-ex (R), and maessaw-i (A-grm).
(251) Inalienable Possessive Suffixes
category invariant after V only after C only
lSg zero, -er, -γ, (rarely) -i
1P1 O-naev
[postvocalic O-nnaer for A-grm]
2MaSg -k
2FeSg -m
2MaPl O-wwaen O-waen
2FePl O-kmaet
3Sg -s
3MaPl O-ssaen O-saen
3FePl O-snaet
This paradigm has strong affinities to the series of pronominal suffixes
used after prepositions (§6.2). Note the dialectal lSg ending -er (for T-ka
varying with -ar), and the postvocalic gemination of the initial C in the 2MaPl
and 3MaPl (and, for Ansongo-Gourma, 1P1).
The kin (or more generally relationship) terms that take the suffixes in
(251) are listed in (252). The forms in the "stem" column can be used with
understood lSg possessor.
