Demonstrative Pronouns and Adjectives, and Articles

according to the referent’s physical or psychological distance from the speaker and the amount of “pointing” or “singling out” the speaker intends. Their forms may be found in Figure 6. A B C D E 1. to toho tora toraha torabo the this that that that there 2. li lihi lira liraha lirabo the this that that that there 3. na naha nara naraha narabo the these those those those there 1 = singular non-masculine human and singular or plural non-human 2 = singular masculine human 3 = plural human A = neutral distance article or demonstrative adjective B = neutral distance demonstrative adjectives or pronoun C = slightly distant demonstrative adjective or pronoun D = distant demonstrative adjective or pronoun E = distant pointing demonstrative adjective or pronoun Figure 6. Demonstrative Pronouns and Adjectives, and Articles The uses of the singular non-masculine, the singular human masculine, the singular or plural non-human, and the plural human forms are the same as those given for the per- sonal pronouns. As implied by their names, the articles and demonstrative adjectives modify nouns in noun phrases, while the demonstrative pronouns are generally used in place of nouns. The articles and demonstrative adjectives are mutually exclusive. That is, a noun may be modi- fied by either an article or a demonstrative adjective or neither, but not by both. Neither personal nor demonstrative pronouns may be modified by articles or demonstrative adjec- tives. Some examples using articles and demonstrative pronouns and adjectives follow: 9 a. li da-rethi the my-husband ‘the husband of mine’ b. to kodibio the bird ‘the bird’ c. tora da-bianthe that.non-masc. my-spouse ‘that female spouse of mine’ 2.3 Nominals 15 d. Lira-bo osa-bo. that.male-there go-CONT ‘That male there is going.’ e. Ama to toho? what be this ‘What is this?’ f. Alikan osy-fa? Naraha? who go-FUT they.there ‘Who will go? They there?’

2.3.3 Nouns

Nouns are an open lexical class and represent the largest group of Arawak nominals. They may be divided into two large classes: alienable and inalienable nouns. Cross-cutting these classes are several other categorizations.

2.3.3.1 Inalienable and Alienable Nouns

Whether a noun is inalienable or alienable has to do with its behavior when it is possessed. Some nouns must receive a suffix to be unpossessed, while others must receive a suffix to be possessed. The former are called inalienable, and the latter are called alienable. For example, note the use of the ‘noun generalizer’ NGEN and ‘possessed’ POSS suffixes in the following: 10 a. Inalienable Noun: de dyna dyna-ha my arm arm-NGEN ‘my arm’ ‘arm’ b. Alienable Noun: de arakabosa-n arakabosa my gun-POSS gun ‘my gun’ ‘gun’ What is meant by ‘possessed’ in the above is that a pronoun or noun expressing ownership, or one referring to a whole of which the noun is a part, is present in the same noun phrase see Section 3.1. It does not have to do with definiteness or the presence of other modifiers. As might be expected, inalienable nouns tend to be nouns which are most commonly used in contexts where they would be possessed. They include most body parts or other parts of a whole, most kinship terms, and a few other words which do not seem to fall into any one easily-definable semantic category. With the exception of most kinship terms, in- alienable nouns can only be used in an unpossessed sense if they have the “noun generalizer” suffix -hV 15 where V is identical with the last vowel of the preceding 16 Phonology and Morphology 15 This suffix may be the same as the recurring partial which occurs in some of the demonstrative pronouns listed in Figure 6. syllable. If a noun has the noun generalizer suffix, it is taken in a very abstract or general sense, not referring to any specific object or entity which exists or has existed or will exist. 11 Kakythinon kamyn-ka khabo-ho. people have-PERF hand-NGEN ‘People have hands.’ Kinship terms, other than special vocative forms, are never used without an expressed possessor. 16 Some additional examples of inalienable nouns are the following: 17 12 khabo-ho ‘hand’ da-khabo ‘my hand’ bana-ha ‘liver’ thy-bana ‘its liver’ aithi ‘son’ l-aithi ‘his son’ eretho ‘wife’ l-eretho ‘his wife’ yda-ha ‘skin’ ada yda ‘bark’ tree skin bode-he ‘fishhook’ de bode ‘my fishhook’ Alienable nouns represent the majority of nouns. When they are possessed, in addition to be- ing preceded by a possessor pronoun either morphologically bound or free or a noun, they receive one of the possession POSS suffixes, -n, -ja, or -ra. 18 When they are unpossessed, they may be used without any morphological modification. Although which suffix to use seems to depend to some extent on the last syllable of the stem e.g. words ending in i tend to receive -ja and to some extent on their origin e.g. many loan words receive -ja, there are many ex- ceptions, and thus it seems best to posit three arbitrary subclasses for them. In terms of fre- quency, most nouns receive the -n suffix. Some examples of alienable nouns are as follows: 13 a. siba ly-siba-n ‘stone’ ‘his stone’ b. ada d-ada-n ‘treewood’ ‘my treewood’ c. karobo wa-karobo-n ‘plate’ ‘our plate’ d. arakabosa de arakabosa-n ‘gun’ ‘my gun’ e. kalhao da-kalhao-ja ‘grass’ ‘my grass’ f. boko Adajali boko-ja ‘book’ ‘God’s book i.e. Bible’ 2.3 Nominals 17 16 See Hickerson 1953, van Renselaar and Voorhoeve 1962, and de Goeje 1928 for descriptions of the Arawak kinship system. 17 An asterisk before an example or other cited form indicates that the form is ungrammatical or unacceptable Arawak. It should be understood that since I am not a native speaker of Arawak, some forms may be marked as ungrammatical when they may not actually be so. 18 Note that -ja is written a when added to a word ending in i.