Personal Pro-forms

These are a closed class. They are marked for case and person. The third person pronouns are additionally marked for topicality or animacy. The alienable genitive acts as the nominal head of a possessive phrase, the inalienable genitive is a determiner, and the other pronouns all act as nouns.

Number

Pronouns are not generally marked for number.

However, if reference is made to a group that includes more than one of these persons, then additional pronouns can be constructed. The second person transitive pronoun -fu v and you can be suffixed to the first person pronouns to form first person inclusive plural pronouns. The third person intransitive inanimate pronoun -pa p and them can be suffixed to first or second person pronouns, including those with -fu, to form other plural pronouns. These pronouns have no inalienable genitive form.

Genitive Forms

The genitive forms mark a connection between nouns, including one noun possessing another.

Alienable Possession

Possession is alienable when the possessed item can be transferred from one owner to another. Alienable possessions include objects bought or received by a person. There is no inanimate alienable genitive pronoun as objects cannot own anything.

The structure of the possessive phrase for alienable possession is “possessor genitive possessed”.

This structure is also used in a hierarchy when the ‘possessor’ is of higher rank than the ‘possessed’.

Inalienable Possession

Inalienable possession refers to items which are unable to be transferred from one individual to another. Inalienable possessions include relatives, parts of the body and objects created by a person.

For inalienable possession, as well as genitive constructions that do not involve literal possession, the structure is “possessed-genitive possessor“, that is, the genitive marker is an enclitic on the possessed item. This marker is always the third person inanimate genitive pronoun, unless the possessor is a plain pronoun.

This structure is also used in a hierarchy when the ‘possessor’ is of lower rank than the ‘possessed’, in contrast to the alienable example above.

Items inalienably possessed by the topic appear without a genitive pronoun.

Some kinship terms have suppletive forms when used with a plain possessive pronoun. See that section for details.