Re: Cases in Banin

Luís Henrique wrote:

> corai (male dog) - cora (female dog)
>
> But they may state explicitly that a "corai" is female:
>
> isu corai ("female male dog")
This reminds me of something strange I saw in Eastern Pomo
spoken in northern California. (I've adjusted the orthography
to a more e-mail friendly one):

               SING.     PLUR.
"boy"          qawí      qawíkh
"girl"         dáxac'    q'aráya qawíkh
"woman"        dá        q'aráya

That is, "girls" is literally "women boys". The rest of the
personal nouns look like this:

"man"          kákh      híbaya
"young man"    shela     shelaya
"young woman"  dáyawal   máywala
"old man"      búc'ike   búc'iya
"old woman"    dáq'ara   máq'athora

Now, explain *that* if you can. Suppletion at its finest
if you ask me. "Old woman" _dáq'ara_ seems to be made up
of _dá_ 'woman' and the root of "woman:PLURAL" _q'ará_.
_ya_ seems to be some sort of general plural suffix.

daniel

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<>           RINYA LAWEA <> Daniel Andreasson           <>