A Note on the History of Genitive Marking in Austronesian Languages

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).