Abstract
In Jumjum, a Western Nilotic language, some body-part nouns, and only such nouns, may be externally possessed in transitive and antipassive clauses. In these external possessor constructions, the possessor is either the object of a transitive verb or the demoted patient of an antipassive verb. The externally possessed body-part noun is partly incorporated into the verb, as shown by the following properties: It immediately follows the verb, its tone is determined by the final tone of the verb, it may combine with a nominalized verb in a kind of compound, and it does not exhibit the root-final nasalization that is prevalent in monosyllabic singular nouns in Jumjum, including internally possessed body-part nouns.
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in interlinear translations and elsewhere:
- 1duin
first person dual inclusive
- 1pl
first person plural
- 1plex
first person plural exclusive
- 1plin
first person plural inclusive
- 1sg
first person singular
- 2pl
second person plural
- 2sg
second person singular
- 3
third person
- 3pl
third person plural
- 3sg
third person singular
- ap
antipassive
- caus
causative
- cf
centrifugal
- com
comitative
- cp
centripetal
- cs
construct state
- dat
dative
- dem1
first person demonstrative
- dem2
second person demonstrative
- dem3
third person demonstrative
- foc
focus
- fut
future
- impf
imperfective
- loc
locative
- mult
multiplicative
- nmlz
nominalizer
- pl
plural
- prep
(multipurpose) preposition
- pro
proform
- proh
prohibitive
- pst
past
- rel
relative
- sg
singular
Acknowledgements
The Jumjum data on which this article is based were collected in Khartoum in July–August 2002, February–April 2004, July–August 2006, and October–November 2007. I wish to thank my Jumjum informants Juzuli Fadol Lago, Ramadan Makin Bashir and Yusif Juzuli for their assistance. I also wish to thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.
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