KASH MORPHOLOGY 1

 

Pronouns

The personal pronouns show first and second person, singular and plural. For third person, the demonstrative iya 'that, that one' is used; it has masculine, feminine and neuter forms in the singular, but only animate and neuter in the plural. There are minor irregularities:

SINGULAR 1st pers. 2nd pers.   3rd masc. 3rd fem. 3rd neut.
Nom. mam hat   iya iye iyu
Gen. mami hati   ini ini ini
Dat. mame hate   ine ~ne ine ~ne ine ~ne
Acc. man han   iyan ~yan iyen ~yen iyu ~yu

There are gender-specific forms in the 3rd person gen./dat. that can be used for clarity-- masc. iyani, iyane, fem. iyeni, iyene; they are relatively recent formations. The nominative forms of all the pronouns are emphatic; likewise the full forms of the 3rd person dat./acc.; the short forms ne, yan etc.are used otherwise. (When nom. iya... is used as a modifier, the i- is deleted after a vowel, so karun iya 'that ruler', lopa ye 'that (fem.) lopa', nimu yu 'that pot'.)

PLURAL 1st pers. 2nd pers.   3rd anim. 3rd neut.
Nom. mila hila   nila niç
Gen. mili hili   nili niçi
Dat. mile hile   nile niçe
Acc. min hin   nin niç

There is also an old "inclusive" 1st plural form kila-- actually a dual 'you and I'-- used nowadays only in some fixed expressions, poetry or archaizing prose; its forms are kila, kili, kile, kin.

As just mentioned, the nominative forms are emphatic and not normally used. But verbs are conjugated to agree with their subject, so there are verbal prefixes corresponding to the three persons, singular and plural:

  singular plural
1st person ma- mi- (ki-)
2nd person ha- hi-
3rd person ya- i-

The genitive forms above are used mainly as possessive adjectives (e.g. yale mami 'it is mine'); otherwise, pronominal possession is shows with suffixes, as follows:

1st pers.: sing. -mi, plural -mim (-kim)
2nd pers.: sing. -ti, plural -hi
3rd pers.: sing. and plural -ni (but any final nasal + -ni irregularly > -ņi-- very frequent

The demonstrative pronouns/adjectives are iya 'that, that one' (as given above), and taya 'this, this one' which, like iya, has gendered forms in the singular:

SINGULAR masc. fem. neut. PLURAL anim. neut.
Nom. taya taye tayu   tala taç
Gen. tani tani tani   tali taçi
Dat. tane tane tane   tale taçe
Acc. tan ten tayu   talan taç

Formerly, there was a third demonstrative yuna ~yune ~yunu 'that (far away), yonder', which fell into disuse and was reclassified as an adverbial particle with the form riyun 'there, yonder (out of sight)'-- coordinate with ritan 'here' and riyan 'there (distant but visible)'.

Interrogative pronouns

There are three: kari 'who?', kandri 'what?', and lani 'which (of two or more)?'; they always occur first in the sentence. Neuter kandri is invariant, occurring only as a nominative or accusative. The other two are inflected:

  singular plural
Nom. kari 'who?' karila
Gen. kariyi 'whose?' karili
Dat. kariye 'to whom?' karile
Acc. karin 'whom?' karilan

The plural forms are seldom used.

As an interrogative pronoun, lani combines with the personal pronouns and is declined somewhat irregularly.The singular forms are used when addressing, or referring to, a small group (say 2-5), or to a larger group with the expectation that just one will be chosen. As subject, they take a verb in the 3rd pers. singular.

Singular (3rd person)  
Nom. laniya laniye lani 'which one (M/F/N)?'
Gen. ....lanini.....
Dat. ....lanine.....
Acc. lanin lanen lani

Plural forms are used to address/refer to a large group (say, 6 or more), usually anticipating a plural answer. As subject, they take a verb in the 3rd pers. plural.

Plural (3rd person) anim. neut.
Nom. lanila laniç 'which ones (of them/those things)?'
Gen. lanili laniçi
Dat. lanile laniçe
Acc. lanilan laniç

It is also combined with the 1st and 2nd pers. plural pronouns:

Nom. lanimim 'which of us?' lanihi 'which of you?'
Gen. lambili lakili
Dat. lambile lakile
Acc. lambin lakin

These are used to address a group of any size. Although plural pronoun forms appear, as subject they generally take a verb in the 3rd pers. singular (though old documents, and some modern speakers, put the verb in 1st of 2nd plural); in any case, they are rarely used nowadays except in quite formal writing or conversation. Colloquially, kari is more common.

As an interrogative adjective, the invariant form lani is used following nouns. The noun carries any necessary case endings, and, if subject, determines the person of the verb, e.g. kandumbrala lani 'which doctors?' (nom.pl.), lopa lani 'which lopa?' (nom.sg.), analeti lani 'to which of your children?' (dat.pl.).

Reflexive pronouns

In 1st and 2nd person, the correct pronominal form suffices: me makotasa 'I said to myself...', yanda han kundika 'don't injure yourself'. In 3rd person, -tu is added (it does not shift stress): netu yakotasa 'he said to himself...'; níletu ikotasa 'they said to themselves...", nindu ilolan 'they protect themselves'. Added to other case forms, -tu is intensive: (nominative) mandu 'I myself', íyetu 'she herself', and for emphasis there may be reduplication-- mam mandu (but note iya yatu ~iye yetu in 3rd person). Added to the genitive, mámitu 'my own', ínitu 'his/her/its own'; it may also be added to the possessive suffixes-- punami 'my house' : punámitu 'my own house'.

Relative pronoun

Properly speaking, there is no relative pronoun. Relative clauses are full sentences (including any pronominal referents) introduced with the invariant subordinating conjunction are (re after vowels) 'that'-- thus mapila re ne matikas 'I think (that) I see him', as well as kaçut are ne matikas... 'the man (whom) I see...' (lit., man CONJ. him I-see). More on this in the Syntax.

 

Return to:

Forward to: