Re: Person marking on nouns

A while ago on the ZBB and on the conlang list we had a discussion about
person marking on nouns, since I'd incorporated it into my conlang at
the time (which I'm doing a bit of work on at the moment). At the time I
had difficulty citing a clear example of a natlang that had such
marking. But, now I have "The Papuan Languages of New Guinea" (Christmas
Present) I can now reveal that such a natlang is: Alamblak, Sepik Hill
Family:

1sing: -a
2sing: ø
3m: -r
3f: -t

1dual: -në
2dual: -fin
3dual: -f

1pl: -nëm
2pl: kë(m)
3pl: -m

These seem to be clitics which attach to the end of the complete NP. Eg:
yima-m "people" vs yima-nëm "we people". I suspect, looking at the
singular gender distinctions in the 3rd person, that as in my conlang
this system evolved primarily to classify 3rd person referents for
gender and number to help distinguish what the verb was agreeing with
(since the language also has verbal agreement)... the markers used were
3rd person pronouns, and this usage naturally extended to the use of the
other pronouns as a consequence. This is only a guess though...

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