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Nouns are morphologically distinguished by their ability to occur with possessive pronouns. Nouns may occur as either free or bound roots. Bound roots must be inflected with a pronominal prefix expressing the person and number of the possessor. The pronominal prefixes are identical in shape to the pronominal prefixes which occur on verbs. Bound noun roots are always inalienably possessed via pronominal prefixes.
(1) Bound noun roots (obligatorily possessed) -ttang ‘hand’ nattang ‘my hand’ -’ung ‘head’ na’ung ‘my head’ -iar ‘father’ niar ‘my father’ -iu ‘mother’ niu ‘my mother’
Free noun roots may be optionally possessed. Most free nouns are possessed possessive pronouns, but some free nouns must be possessed via the inalienable possessive construction using pronominal prefixes.
(4) Free noun roots (optionally possessed) bla ‘house’ nai bla ‘my house’ maggi ‘banana’ nai maggi ‘my banana’ tabang ‘slave’ nai tabang ‘my slave’ (3) Free noun roots (optionally inalienably possessed) wakke ‘child’ nawake ‘my child’ uru ‘back’ nauru ‘my back’ ke’e ‘bone’ nake’e ‘my bone’
Many nouns can occur as verbs with no additional derivational morphology. These nouns usually refer to instruments associated with the event described by the verb. Some examples are given below.
(4) NOUN VERB babar ‘broom’ ‘to sweep’ ayang ‘current’ ‘to drift with current’ ber ‘word’ ‘to speak’ ya ‘road’ ‘head toward’ bloppa ‘weapon’ ‘to shoot’ daring ‘layer, group’ ‘to congregate’ doling ‘rudder’ ‘to lean’ hapis ‘tweezers’ ‘to pinch’ lamuli ‘hero’ ‘be strong’ sidda ‘sprout, bud’ ‘to grow’ tu’ing ‘hole’ ‘to leak’ wani ‘honey’ ‘be sweet’
Four different morphological strategies are used to mark possession in Western Pantar: possessive pronouns, pronominal prefixes, genitive pronouns, and patientive pronouns. These four strategies combine to distinguish ordinary, inalienable, and alienable possession.
The possessive pronouns are essentially the same as the possessive prefixes (above), with the addition of the vowel <i>. Possessive determiners precede the the possessed noun and may optionally be preceded by an adjunct noun phrase refering to the possessor.
(5) Possessive paradigm for ‘house’ nai bla ‘my house’ hai bla ‘your house’ gai bla ‘his/her/it’s house’ ai bla ‘his/her/it’s house’ (obviative) pi bla ‘our (inclusive) house’ tai bla ‘our (paucal) house’ ni bla ‘our (exclusive) house’ hi bla ‘your house’ gi bla ‘their house’ i bla ‘their house’ (obviative)
An adjunct noun phrase referring to the possessor may optionally precede the possessive pronoun.
(6) aname gai bla person 3SG.POSS house ‘the man’s house’
The possessive pronouns distinguish two third persons, the second of these labeled here as "fourth" person. Three first person plural forms are distinguished: inclusive, distributive, and exclusive.
| singular | plural | |
| 1 | nai | pi/tai/ni |
| 2 | hai | hi |
| 3 | gai | gi |
| 4 | ai | i |
Inalienable possession is expressed morphologically via the use a pronominal prefix indexing the person and number of the possessor. The pronominal prefixes are formally identical to the pronominal prefixes on verbs. Pronominal prefixes may be used in conjunction with possessive pronouns (see above). An adjunct NP referring to the possessor may precede the pronominal prefix.
| singular | plural | |
| 1 | na- | pi-/ta-/ni- |
| 2 | ha- | hi- |
| 3 | ga- | gi- |
| 4 | a-/'- | i- |
Inalienable possession is the standard way to express possession of nouns which are obligatorily possessed, including many nouns referring to body parts and kinship and locational nouns. An example is given below.
(7) Possessive paradigm for -wasing ‘tooth’ (nai) nawasing ‘my tooth’ (hai) hawasing ‘your tooth’ (gai) gawasing ‘his/her/it’s tooth’ (ai) awasing ‘his/her/it’s tooth’ (obviative) (pi) piwasing ‘our (inclusive) tooth’ (tai) tawasing ‘our (paucal) tooth’ (ni) niwasing ‘our (exclusive) tooth’ (hi) hiwasing ‘your tooth’ (gi) giwasing ‘their tooth’ (i) iwasing ‘their tooth’ (obviative)
Possessive pronouns may be used to distinguish otherwise homophonous possessive prefixes
(8) Distinction of homophonous singular and plural forms gai geba ‘his neck’ gi geba ‘their necks’
The possessive pronoun is preferred when a nominal adjunct is present.
| John gai giar ?John giar |
'John's father' |
For alienable nouns the use of a possessive prefix is not possible, thus *gabla is not licit.
The vowel of the possessive prefix is sometimes elided, resulting in homophonous singular and plural forms.
| singular | plural | |
| 1 | neba | peba/teba/neba |
| 2 | heba | heba |
| 3 | geba | geba |
In other cases the vowel is retained.
| singular | plural | |
| 1 | naule | piule/taule/niule |
| 2 | haule | hiule |
| 3 | gaule | giule |
Alienable possession is indicated via the use of a patientive independent pronoun immediately preceding the noun (see verb morphology). No prefix occurs. This is a fairly rare construction. Alienable possession is generally used to indicate non-intrinsic possession of nouns which would otherwise inalienably possessed (i.e., obligatorily possessed nouns). The prototypical usage is to indicate possession of a body part which is not part of one’s one body.
(9) ke’e ‘bone’ nake’e ‘my bone’ (in my body) naing ke’e ‘my bone’ (part of an animal being butchered)
The rarity of this construction can be described by the infrequency of the situation which it describes.
An alternative possessive construction called the genitive construction is formed using the genitive pronouns rather than the possessive pronouns. The genitive pronouns may occur either independently or in conjunction with adjunct noun phrase(s) indexing the possessor and/or possessed. Genitive pronouns function as the head of genitive possessive phrase. In contrast to the possessive construction with the possessive pronoun, the possessor NP follows the possessed NP.
(9) Word order in genitive construction ( NPPOSSESSED ) ( NPPOSSESSOR ) PROGEN
The form of the genitive pronoun follows the same pattern as that of the other pronouns, as shown in the table below.
| singular | plural | |
| 1 | na'ai | pi'i/ta'ai/ni'i |
| 2 | ha'ai | hi'i |
| 3 | ga'ai | gi'i |
| 4 | a'ai | i'i |
The genitive construction differs structurally from the ordinary possessive construction in that the latter is head-final, while the former is head-initial. Both constructions are dependent-marking in that the possessor NP is morphologically marked for possession.
(10) Comparison of genitive and possessive constructions gai bla 3SG.POSS house ‘his house’ bla ga’ai bla 3SG.GEN ‘the house of his’
Last modified March 2007 by Gary Holton at the University of Alaska Fairbanks
Cite this page:
Holton, Gary. 2007. Nouns. An Overview of Western Pantar.
Online: http://www.faculty.uaf.edu/ffgmh1/pantar/nouns.html