Development of genitive pronouns in Philippine languages

Christopher Sundita csundita at YAHOO.COM
Sat Oct 14 05:21:04 UTC 2006


Hello,

I was wondering if someone could shed some light or refer me to a resource that
sheds some light on the development of the genitive pronouns in Philippine
languages.

I recall reading, but I do not recall where, that the formation of the genitive
nouns stems from the personal marker "ni" plus the bare oblique form of the
pronoun.

To use Tagalog as an example: 

niya < ni + iya
natin < ni + atin
namin < ni + amin
nila < ni + ila

Visayan and Bikol languages preserve the "n" for all pronouns:

Bikol:

1s nyako
2s mo (not *nimo)
3s niya
1p nyato (inc)
1p nyamo (exc)
2p nindo
3c ninda

Cebuano:

1s nako
2s nimo
3s niya
1s nato (inc)
1s namo (inc)
2s ninyo
3s nila

Taking this a step further, I notice someting in the oblique form:

sa akin
sa iyo
sa kaniya
...
sa kanila

Why is there a "ka" there? One would probably expect *sa iya and *sa ila. 
Though those forms exist in Bikol (though the latter is sa inda).

Thanks for any input.

--Chris

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