Eenantowash!

"Speak same!"

Lesson 5

I hope you are enjoying learning our language. Unfortunately every language has its set of rules and exceptions. We are no different here. The rules you learned in the previous lesson are going to stand you in good stead in this and the lessons to come. So, let us progress.

Dependent Nouns

You are becoming well acquainted with nouns. Here is another class of nouns for you to remember. These are called dependent nouns. Why dependent nouns? Well, this is due to a different way they had of looking at the relationships between things. For example, in English we can have 'a mother', but in our view of the world, such a thing as a mother could not exist in isolation, she is always somebody's mother. My mother, their mother, there was always a connection or dependency on that object 'mother'. Similarly so for many other objects, notably family members and body parts. In the vocabulary you will see them marked as NI dep. or NA dep.

There is another rule for you to remember when making the pronominal prefix for a dependent noun.

If a noun is dependent and is vowel-initial then the prefix changes it's spelling. The |u| of the prefix is dropped before the initial vowel of the stem (which is usually an |a, ē or 8|).

If a dependent noun is consonant initial, then the expected prefix will be used regardless of the noun's dependency.

Example:

-eepit (NIdep) → 'tooth'
-ogquan (NIdep) → 'heel'

neepit → 'my tooth'
nogquan → 'my heel'

Further examples:

-8sh (NAdep), 'father'

n8sh → 'my father'
k8sh → 'your father'
8shah → 'his/her father' (obv)
n8shun → 'our(ex.) father'
k8shun → 'our(inc.)father'
k8shuw → 'your(pl.)father'
8shuwôwah → 'their father' (obv))

n8shak → 'my fathers'
k8shak → 'your fathers'
8shah → 'his/her fathers' (obv)
n8shunônak → 'our(ex.) fathers'
k8shunônak → 'our(inc.)fathers'
k8shuwak → 'your(pl.)fathers'
8shuwôwah → 'their fathers' (obv)

Here the pronominal prefixes have lost their |-u-| according to the rule of |u| before stem initial vowel. Secondly, the normal prefix for third person singular and plural do not appear on the word at all because the initial phoneme <8> causes the third person prefix, 'wu', to be deleted. This same pattern of third person prefix deletion also occurs with the NAdep stem <-8kas> -> 'mother'.

Notice the obviative '-ah' on the third person examples. This is just the same as for non-dependent animate nouns.

Time for your brain to take a rest. There is no homework tonight. Go and play!

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