Difference between revisions of "Possessives with Adjectives"
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pañiik <b>es</b> parʄu maak saƭku <b>es</b> ke‘the my ugly big strong elephants’ |
pañiik <b>es</b> parʄu maak saƭku <b>es</b> ke‘the my ugly big strong elephants’ |
||
| − | xa nafad <b>es</b> xa lakas es axe |
+ | xa nafad <b>es</b> xa lakas <b>es</b> axe ‘the my other shoes’ |
When this happens, in some word-final phonological environment there is contraction of the possessive clitic: |
When this happens, in some word-final phonological environment there is contraction of the possessive clitic: |
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Revision as of 21:00, 14 December 2012
Possessive pronoun clitics can attach to any of the words in a string of noun-modifications.
wiin es faaxu we ‘the my good people’ people my good Det wiin faaxu es we people good my Det
rew es daduk xoju mosu we ‘the five thin beautiful women’ women my five thin beautiful Det
rew daduk es xoju mosu we women five my thin beautiful Det
rew daduk xoju es mosu we women five thin my beautiful Det
rew daduk xoju mosu es we women five thin beautiful my Det
ataaya fañaayu es fe ‘the my spicy tea’ tea spicy my Det ataaya es fañaayu fe tea my spicy Det
ataaya es ñyaayu ke ‘the my spicy teas’ teas my spicy Det
ataaya ñyaayu es ke teas spicy my Det
fañiik fambarʄu fe ‘the ugly elephant’ fañiik es fambarʄu fe ‘the my ugly elephant’ fañiik fambarʄu es fe
The possessive clitic can even occur on multiple of the modifiers, as well as to the noun itself:
fañiik es fambarʄu famaak es fe ‘the my ugly big elephant’ fañiik fambarʄu es famaak fe fañiik fambarʄu famaak es fe
pañiik es parʄu maak ke ‘the my ugly big elephants’ pañiik parʄu es maak ke pañiik parʄu maak es ke
pañiik es parʄu maak saƭku es ke‘the my ugly big strong elephants’
xa nafad es xa lakas es axe ‘the my other shoes’
When this happens, in some word-final phonological environment there is contraction of the possessive clitic:
ojafes oɗomu le ‘the my painful leg’ ojaf odomes ole ojaf odoms ole
There are some modifiers for which the possessor clitic attachment cannot occur:
fideles sumu fe ‘the my hot fire’ *fidel sumes fe
It is unclear to how many modifiers the possessive can attach before it stops being odd or unacceptable to the speaker. A threshold test definitely shows that a possessive on ALL modifiers is unacceptable, but any combination more than just two is not as clearly unacceptable:
rew es daduk es xoju mosu we ‘the thin beautiful women’ rew daduk es xoju mosu es we ?rew es daduk es xoju es mosu we #rew es daduk es xoju es mosu es we
