In a message dated 11/4/2006 4:03:45 PM Eastern Standard Time,
rakko@CHARTER.NET writes:
>4. To show possession of one noun by another, you simply juxtapose
>them, with possessor first, e.g. <kamuy mat> "a god's wife".
>- Is it possible to say *<kamuy maci>?
According to _The Languages of Japan_, this is backwards. You would have to
use "maci" (the belonging/possessed form) and not "mat". [p. 37]
>5. To show possession of a noun by a pronominal referent, you can
>either use the appropriate possessive prefix plus the belonging form,
>or use a verbal prefix on the verb <kor>, "to have", followed by the
>noun, e.g. <ku=kor mat> or <ku=maci> "my wife".
It's worth pointing out that you are correct here that it's "ku=kor mat" with
the plain (not possessed) form of "mat" since this is perhaps
counterintuitive.
>9. I have read on this list that Ainu has the alienable/inalienable
>possession distinction.
>- How is this distinction shown? I haven't found anything that says
>e.g. that you use the prefixes for inalienable and prefix+<kor> for
>alienable.
The same book says that the "ku-kor mat" construction is "limited to those
cases in which the possessed noun refers to a person." [p. 37] You could take
this limitation as a partial indocation of alienable/inalienable.
-- Doug