chapter 6 The Phrase

This chapter presents the Duhumbi noun phrase and all aspects related to it, including the order of its constituents (6.1), the various nominal suffixes deter- mining grammatical relations and cases (6.2), the nominal suffixes with other functions (6.3), other means of modifying nominal parts of speech (6.4), and specific uses of certain parts of speech, namely the (6.5), the demon- stratives (6.6), the numeral hin ‘one’ (6.7), the postposition naŋ ‘in’ (6.8), and the interrogatives (6.9).

6.1 Constituent Order in Noun Phrases

Duhumbi sentences generally are -final, and generally, the subject pre- cedes the object, i.e. SOV word order. The subject and object generally con- stitute of noun phrases, with the predicate (verbal or non-verbal) in clause- or sentence-final position. In a typical noun phrase with the maximum number of possible constituents, it is common to find a or noun (the subject / agent) in the first position. The pronoun or noun is followed by its possible modifiers (such as adjectives, , numerals, ). A temporal , if present, usually precedes the pronoun and its modifiers, a locative adverb, if present, follows the pronoun and its modifiers. A noun (direct object) and its modifiers and a noun denoting a possible indirect object and its modi- fiers, are the optional last constituents. Among the noun modifiers, a precedes the noun, whereas the follows it (exceptions are the adjectives formed from the agent parti- ciple and the genitive case kʰen-naʔ AGN-GEN). A numeral follows the noun and all its modifiers. A postposition follows the noun and all its modifiers, including the numeral. An adverb precedes the adjective it modifies. Finally, adverbs modifying the verbal predicate precede the phrase-final verbal form. Schemati- cally, then, a noun phrase can be represented as temporal adverb—pronoun— locative adverb—demonstrative—noun—adjective—adverb—numeral— postposition(—adverb—predicate). An example can be found in (183).

(183) Dejju goʔ Diraŋkʰo naŋɲi ogi pʰas oʥop hin ɕida. dejju ga-oʔ diraŋ-kʰo naŋ-ɲi ogi pʰas oʥop hin yesterday 1SG-ERG Dirang-LOC 2SG-DAT that gift good one

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2020 | doi:10.1163/9789004409484_007 the noun phrase 261

ɕi-da give-IPFV ‘Yesterday, in Dirang, I gave you that good gift.’

This is an example of a prototypical, idealised situation, conforming to the common Duhumbi SOV word order. However, in reality, constituent order in Duhumbi is extremely flexible, and in everyday speech, and hence, in most of the corpus, the ‘ideal’ prototype is hardly ever encountered.

6.2 Grammatical Relations and Case Markers

The following sections discuss the case marking suffixes of Duhumbi, that can be either suffixed to the noun head of the noun phrase, in which they modify only the noun head, or to the final element of a noun phrase, in which they modify the entire noun phrase. In other words, in a noun phrase with several constituents, the nominal suffix is not on the noun itself, but on the last con- stituent that forms a part of the noun phrase. In Duhumbi, an unmarked noun, pronoun or nominal predicate may be con- sidered to be in the unmarked absolutive case (6.2.1) if that noun is the object of a or the subject of an . Duhumbi has an erga- tive case in -oʔ ERG (6.2.2), a dative case in -ɲi DAT (6.2.3) and a genitive case in -aʔ GEN (6.2.4). The allative case -ta ALL (6.2.5) is rather special, as it can addi- tionally be modified by the locative case, which is why it is discussed before the other location and motion markers. Duhumbi has a locative case -kʰo LOC (6.2.6), with locative, lative, causal and temporal attributes, and an ablative case -loʔ ABL (6.2.7). In addition, there is are several suffixes with very diverse functions (6.3).

Duhumbi can specifically mark the agent1 and, if present, the patient2 of the action a verb. In doing so, there is a clear split in , a split that is linked

1 With ‘agent’ I refer to the thematic relation and semantic concept of the ‘actant’,the ‘doer’,i.e. the one who causes or initiates an action or event expressed by the verb. This is commonly the subject, but, as shown later on, can also be the object, or even both. 2 With ‘patient’ I refer to the thematic relation and semantic concept of the ‘target’ or ‘under- goer’, i.e. the one upon whom the action of the verb is carried out. As will be shown later, this can be a beneficiary, or a recipient, or a target or goal etc. The patient either fulfils the syn- tactic role of the direct or indirect object, with an indirect object only present if there also is a direct object (with the direct object then usually in the unmarked, absolutive case unless it also fulfils an instrumental role as in (214)).