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Teonaht: Difference between revisions
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Likewise, the oblique object articles will often bond with the preposition: '''aril''', "to the"; '''celuõl''', "in a"; '''euil''' "to the" (this last needs the glide "u" to bond '''e''' and '''il'''). | Likewise, the oblique object articles will often bond with the preposition: '''aril''', "to the"; '''celuõl''', "in a"; '''euil''' "to the" (this last needs the glide "u" to bond '''e''' and '''il'''). | ||
=== Possession === | |||
The Teonaht noun shows a variety of ways of expressing possession, as we have seen already with the "genitive" above. The most common way is to suffix '''-id''' to the noun:<blockquote><center>'''betõid,''' "boy's" | |||
'''tohda betõid,''' "cat of a boy", "a boy's cat" | |||
</center>Another way is to prefix '''d-,''' '''di-''' or '''id-''' to the noun:<center>'''dytanney,''' "of a foot," "foot's" | |||
'''dippaneht''', "of force" | |||
</center>Still another way is to suffix '''-id''' to the article:<center>'''mabbamba ilid betõ''', "the boy's ball" | |||
'''ilid flehta,''' "of the fire" | |||
</center></blockquote>A rule of thumb is that the possessed object generally precedes the possessor, and where there are exceptions, convention requires that '''d-, di-,''' and '''-id-''' not be placed between the two words to avoid a construction like '''betõid mabbamba''', which could be taken for '''betõ idmabbamba,''' "the ball's boy." The Teonaht would say, however, that this makes little difference in the close relationship of possessor and possessed--and violate this prescription all the time. If the NP is head initial, then that in itself reduces ambiguity, although you will also find '''dotma paneht''', "the demon's strength." This, actually, seems to be the older tradition, back when Teonaht, a good OV language, was more "head final" in structure, and its adjectives preceded its nouns. In short, Teonaht is fairly flexible about word order. | |||
How do these work with other prefixes? With plural prefixes, the possessive suffix is used if there is no article: '''wydo niselivyd''', "[the] truth of concepts." Otherwise: '''paneht ilid niselivy''', "[the] strength of the concepts." | |||
==Syntax== | ==Syntax== | ||