General noun phrase Possessive noun phrase Genitive noun phrase

b. le l-alei luom l-ire nimpu he 3m-eat.3m water 3m-with gnetum.leaves. He ate dried sago andwith gnetum leaves. The conjunction -ire is also used for accompaniment and instrument, although the latter use is fairly rare. It does not occur in the text body used in this work. 74 a. metine l-ire moto roum m-e man 3m-with wife they.fd fd-go The man with his wife, they went. b. ki k-elele nimpe k-ire tomiyo I 1s-fell tree 1s-with ax I fell a tree with an ax. Olo has a two groups of discourse markers. They are used to link two or more sentences into larger groups. The discourse markers are given in table 2.13. Table 2.13. Olo discourse linker sequencers le sequence so close link sequence lo loose sequence wo ordered sequence leye lo major sequence eventresult yo non causal result leso causal effect eite reason result

2.3.3 Noun phrase

There are three different types of noun phrases in Olo: the general, the possessive, and the genitive. Each type of noun phrase has a unique morphological structure and realizes different semantic constructions.

2.3.3.1 General noun phrase

All modifiers in Olo noun phrases follow the head noun Staley 1994b. Examples of this are given in 75–79. 75 mete lipi Noun + Adjective men big. PL big men 76 metine- éwuso l-esi-ene nafle n-epe… ù Noun + Relative Clause man ëwho 3m-old-3f bird 3f- DEM û The man who held this bird The man who flew this plane… 77 mete winges neliyeye Noun + Numerals men two.m one.m three men two + one 2.3 Grammatical Characterization 27 78 metine l-epe Noun + Demonstrative man 3m- DEM this man 79 pora él-iti wom ù Noun + Prepositional Phrase basket ë3m-of coconut û a coconut leaf basket Olo speakers resist loading their noun phrases with many elements. If the information is new, then it is apt to be introduced in multiple clauses. If it is not new, the native speaker will try to use reference management schemes to avoid a large NP. AN NP with more than two elements in it is considered large. However, the order for a fully specified noun phrase is: Noun or embedded Noun Phrase, Ad- jective or Adjective Phrase, Numeral, Relative Clause or Prepositional Phrase, and Demonstrative.

2.3.3.2 Possessive noun phrase

The possessive noun phrase in Olo is distinguished from other NPs by the inclusion of the compound possessive pronoun. The order is possessed nominal, possessor nominal, and finally possessive pro- noun. The possessor does not need to be expressed by a nominal in the possessive noun phrase, but it cannot be expressed by anything else. 80 a. ila moto le-ne knife woman m-3f the woman’s knife b. ila le-ne knife 3m-3f her knife c. ila le-iki knife 3m-1s my knife The possessive noun phrase is also used to realize kinship relations. The head of the possessive noun phrase, the first nominal is always a kin term, and the second nominal is optional. 81 a. ninge Rita le-ne son Rita m-3f Rita’s son b. paliene le-iki grandson 3m-1s my grandson

2.3.3.3 Genitive noun phrase

The genitive noun phrase in Olo realizes part-whole and class-member relationships. Syntactically, it is distinguished from the possessive noun phrase by the lack of the possessive pronoun and by both the nouns being obligatory. Modification of either noun is ungrammatical, although the genitive can fill the head position of the noun phrase and the whole construction can be modified as in 82c. 82 a. nimpe oru tree head the top branches of a tree 28 The Olo Language b. nimpe ili oru tree big.m head c. nimpe oru ili tree head big.m the big top branches of a tree the big tree top

2.3.4 Adjective phrase