A Grammar of South Efate

5. Nominals and the noun phrase

5. Nominals and the noun phrase The class of nominals in South Efate is made up of pronouns and nouns. All nominals can act as heads ofNPs, but the subject proclitic is taken as representing the subject argument, so any other nominals acting in the role of subject are either cross-referencing the proclitic or acting as adjuncts. As the object suffix can alternate with a lexical object, either of the two must be considered the object NP. In this chapter I will first discuss subclasses of pronouns and nouns and move on to outline productive nominalization processes, before describing the noun phrase. The ways in which noun phrases act in the sentence are discussed in Chapter 11 on simple sentences. 5.1. Pronouns The pronominal inventory of South Efate is fairly rich, encoding singular, dual and plural, inclusive and exclusive. There are separate paradigms for free and bound forms. The class of free pronouns comprises demonstrative pronouns, focal pronouns (which can function as both subject and object), and a set of free possessive/benefactive forms. Bound pronouns include paradigms ofportmanteau subject proclitics encoding realis, irrealis, and perfective. a suffixes encode reflexives and reciprocals, direct possession, object, and oblique object. The paradigm set for all pronominal forms is given in Table 5: 1. A distinction between first non-singular inclusive and exclusive is made for all forms. There are no dual forms of focal pronouns. As dual is only expressed in the proclitic subject forms, the category of plural covers numbers greater than one for free pronouns and greater than two for clitic subject pronouns. I discuss each of the columns in Table 5:1. in tum below. Gender is not a feature of South Efate nominals. There are, however, two examples of a nominal prefix indicating gender, lei/Ii 'female', kalo/kei 'male'. These are apparently archaic forms that only appeared in discussion with Kalsarap Namaf, an 87-year-old man, who gave the following examples: Liku wan go ipa? 'Who is that (woman) going there?' Kaloku wan go ipa? 'Who is that (man) going there?' Older speakers have reported the polite use of dual or plural forms with singular reference to a person in an in-law relationship, but this is not in general use today. I have observed that avoidance of in-laws is practised on Lelepa island to the north-west of Efate, and that dual and plural forms are used to indicate respect in Lelepa. 103 Chapter 5 Table 5:1. Free pronominal forms in South Efate Focal Pronoun Oblique (Indirect Possess- POS/ Benefactive -BEN) lsg kineu / neu (nig)neu 2sg ag (ne)gag 3sg ga (ne)ga Ip. (in) akit (ne)gakit Ip. (ex) komam (nig)mam 2p. akam (ne)gamus 3p. gar (ne)gar 5.1.1. Focal pronouns Focal pronouns (Lynch 2000b:40), or independent pronouns (Crowley 1998:40), can function as both subject and object and do not attach to a verb. Focal pronouns can form NPs on their own, and, unlike bound pronouns, make no realis/irrealis distinction. They express only singular and plural and do not distinguish dual number. Examples (Ia) and (1b) show the Isg focal pronoun acting as subject and object respectively. Ia Me kineu a=tap nrogtesa-wes mau. but 15g 15gRS=NEG fell.bad-3sg0 NEG2 But I don't/eel bad about it. (005ax, 1031.1, 1035.2400) 1b Ruk=fo wat kineu. 3p.RS=PSP:IR hit 15g They will hit me. (98002b, 357.87, 358.8400) 104 Table 5:2. Bound pronominal forms in South Efate Bound pronouns Subject Subject Subject Object Oblique Direct Realis Irrealis Perfect (0) Object Poss Pro- Pro- Pro- (OBL) (DP) clidc clitic clitic (RS) (IRR) (PS) Isg a= ka= kai= -wou -wou -k 2sg ku= pa= kui= (TS)-k -wok -m 3sg i= ke= ki= (TS)-e / -n -wes -n Id. ta= tak= takai= (in) Id. rak= rakai= (ex) ra= 2d. ra= rak= rakai= 3d. rak= rakai=/ ra= rai= Ip. tu=/ tu= tuk= tui=/ -kit -kit -kit (in) (tukoi=) Ip. ui=/ -mam/ -mam/ (ex) u= ko= koi= -mom/ -m -mam -mom/ -m 2p. u= ko= koi= -mus -mus -mus 3p. ruk= rui=/ (TS)-r ru= (rukui=) -wer -r Chapter 5 Similarly, (2a) and (2b) show the 2sg focal pronoun as subject and object respectively. 2a Me ag ku=rnol to go tak=ler. but 2sg 2sgRS=alive STAT and 1d.IRR=return But you are...