FW: possessive constructions in siouan

["Alfred W. Tüting"]

 > Are you looking into Polynesian languages too?  Hawaiian, and
apparently other Polynesian languages, are among the only languages in
the world where possession can bounce between alienable and inalienable
(represented by the type of possessive pronoun used). <<


Yes, (although I only provided examples of languages I'm more or less
familiar with - except for Russian that I dealt with about 50 years back
- and have forgotten most of it :( ).
But don't also Dakotan tongues - theoretically - can "bounce between
alienable and inalienable" possession (albeit in more complex ways)? In
Hawaiian, it appears to be much less complex:
"The possessive pronominals of Hawaiian can occur either postnominally
as analytic pronouns or prenominally, bound to the definite article.
These pronouns express alienable/inalienable distinctions through the
thematic vowel o/a." (e.g. your hat: ka pa:ale a'u or k-a'u pa:ale
glossed as: DEF hat ALIENABLE.you.POSS or DEF.ALIENABLE.you.POSS hat).
Most probably using the same structure for, say, niho (tooth) would be
ungrammatical and it should be ka niho o'u/ko'u niho instead.


Alfred