FW: possessive constructions in siouan

[David Kaufman]

Alfred T. wrote:
-- 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. -- Exactly.  In Hawaiian, things like body parts and family members (like Siouan) as well as house, canoe, thoughts, one's chief, etc. are considered inalienable taking the ko'u pronominal.

Bob R. wrote:
-- Choctaw can do that too.  /sassish/ and /amissish/ both meaning 'my blood', but in one case it's in your body and inalienable, while in the other it's dripped out of a cut and is on the table -- and alienable. -- This is more like what I had in mind for Hawaiian, where some nouns can take either the inalienable ko'u or the alienable ka'u with changes in meaning, e.g.: ka'u nani (my pretty one) vs. ko'u nani (my fine looks); ka'u lei (lei made by me) vs. ko'u lei (lei that I'm wearing).

Hope that makes some sense!

Dave
"Alfred W. Tüting" <ti at fa-kuan.muc.de> wrote:
> 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








		
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