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Article: A Note on the history of genitive marking in Austronesian languages.(Squib)
- Article from:
- Oceanic Linguistics
- Article date:
- June 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 University of Hawaii Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Three forms of the genitive phrase marker have been proposed for Proto-Austronesian: *ni, *na, and *nu. While there is universal agreement on the form of this reconstructed system, reconstruction of the meanings/functions of these forms has been far more problematic. It is argued that *nu marked the genitive of common nouns, while *ni and *na marked the genitive of singular and plural personal nouns respectively. The evidence supporting this reconstruction forces a reconsideration of the *ni-phrases posited by Robert Blust in this journal in 1974: "Proto-Austronesian syntax: The first step. (13:1-15).
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Over the past century, our notions of the ...