Re: Edible and Drinkable Pronouns?
From: | Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...> |
Date: | Monday, July 2, 2007, 21:15 |
In the last episode, (On Saturday 12 May 2007 08:52:33), you wrote:
> 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. :)
>
Just caught up on this. Looks like body-part nouns are inalienable and take a
suffix?
Jeff
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