Hindi and Gujarati discontinuous NPs

[Bob Eaton]

>> what language is it? E.g. in the Hissar Parya language, which reveals some features both of the North-Western NIA and Rajasthani dialects, it is normal to express given - including inalienable - possession through formal pronominal enclitics or postpositional possessive pronouns. 
It was a Kangri (Pahari from Himachal Pradesh) story, and while it has some aspects reminiscent of Rajasthani, I don't think this is one of them. The sentence was:
 
छोट्टा भ़ाऊ मेरा पाणिऐं च डुब्बा दा था ।
choTTaa bhaauu meraa paNiai cha Dubbaa daa thaa
small brother my water in drown -ing was
 
The 1st person singular pronoun 'my' is identical to the Hindi form. In the audio recording, there's a pause after it as well, which argues that it is part of the 'small brother' phrase, rather than the 'in the water' phrase (and in any case, it wouldn't be inflected correctly to say it goes with 'in the water'.
 
But the pragmatically neutral order for this would definitely be just like the Hindi:
 
मेरा छोट्टा भ़ाऊ पाणिऐं च डुब्बा दा था ।
meraa choTTaa bhaauu paNiai cha Dubbaa daa thaa
my small brother water in drown -ing was
 
Bob
 
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