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Edible and Drinkable Pronouns?

From:David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...>
Date:Saturday, May 12, 2007, 7:52
I haven't found that reference I've been looking for yet, but I
rediscovered my Fijian grammar, and came across an interesting
section.  Apparently there are four varieties of possessive
pronouns:

(1) Neutral
(2) Edible
(3) Drinkable
(4) Familiar

Neutral and familiar are rather commonplace (the first being an
"everything else" category, and the latter being for body parts,
or family members), but the other two are used exclusively with
things that are edible and potable.  Here are some examples:

(1) na noNgu waNga
/ART neut.1sg.pos. canoe/
"my canoe"

(2) na Ngau ika
/ART edi.1sg.pos. fish/
"my fish"

(3) na meNgu jaNgona
/ART pot.1sg.pos. kava/
"my kava"

(4) na ulu-Ngu
/ART head-fam.1sg.pos./
"my head"

And then you can use different ones to imply different things:

na noNgu jaNgona "my kava (which I grow or sell)"
na meNgu jaNgona "my kava (which I drink"

Those are the only four there are.  I wouldn't've expected to see
"edible" and "drinkable" as two major divisions of a four-part
possessive system, so I thought I'd share.  :)

-David
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Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...>