Re: Telek Nouns

Marcus Smith wrote:

>> Inalienable possession works the same way in Chasm”–cho and Telek: body
>> parts and kinship terms are always inalienable, plus a few others (like
>> "home" - so you see that inalienable possession in the language has nothing
>> to do with actual inalienability in real life :) -).
>
>"Home" is inalienable, as is "dwelling, residence", but "house" is
>alienable.
>
>I've also discovered that words like "person", "man", and "woman" cannot
>be possessed at all; and words like "child" and "animal" have one form
>that can be possessed (denoting relationship "my child" and "my animal (=
>my pet)" and another which cannot be ("a child" "an animal").
This is reminiscent of Tokana:  In Tokana, natural resources (land,
water, domestic animals) are treated as inalienably possessed,
although the products of those resources (food, water, shelter)
are treated as alienably possessed.

Incidentally, Tokana makes various lexical distinctions between
resources and non-resources.  For example, there are two words
for water:  "nà" is water which has been designated for human
use, while "kunu" is water which has not been designated for
human use (the latter term also means a body of water).
Similarly, "ohte" is land set aside for agriculture, grazing,
and building houses and encampments, while "thanam" is land
which is not set aside for those purposes.

Matt.