Chapter 11 Nouns and their world
Expressing possession
Phi uses two related constructions. Inside a noun phrase, the associated person or thing comes first. In a full predicate, phelu states present holding, control, or possession.
Possessor before possessed
sila nophi means the community's story. The first noun modifies the second without a genitive ending or possessive particle.
| Phi | Literal gloss | Likely reading |
|---|---|---|
phao shelu | parent book | the parent's book |
melu thepalu | friend garden | the friend's garden |
shiro lirowa | tree leaf | the tree's leaf |
sila kerou | community stone | a stone associated with the community |
Adjacency does not specify the legal or social relation. It can express ownership, kinship, part-whole structure, authorship, custody, use, or another association that context makes available. When that distinction matters, another clause names it.
Pronoun possessors
The core pronouns keep their ordinary form:
| Phi | Literal gloss | English |
|---|---|---|
mia shelu | I book | my book |
thia thepalu | you garden | your garden |
shia melu | other friend | their friend |
The possessor precedes the rest of its noun phrase:
mia serao shelu — my old book
mia ha serao shelu — this old book of mine
The order is not freely reversible. serao mia shelu would disturb the canonical nesting rather than create an elegant emphasis. Focus uses ko, and a separate clause can carry a contrast that the noun phrase should not be asked to hold.
Predicative possession with phelu
To say that someone has or holds something, make the possessed thing the object of phelu:
mia lohau phelu.
1SG dog hold.
mia wi themo wiru phelu.
1SG two THING.CLF basket hold.
A bare clause-initial pronoun remains the subject. mia lohau nai. can only mean "I am a dog." In mia lohau welao nai., noun-phrase structure makes mia lohau the possessed subject, so the clause means "My dog is good." "I am a good dog" keeps the descriptor with the predicate noun: mia welao lohau nai.
phelu names present grasp, control, or possession. A wider institutional ownership claim needs its own account. General Phi can describe who holds, uses, tends, made, or received a thing; an exact property status belongs to the source record that establishes it.
Nested possession
Possession can nest:
mia melu shelu — my friend's book
Here mia melu forms the possessor phrase for shelu. Another layer quickly becomes hard to recover by ear. Two short clauses usually leave the relationships clearer than a chain such as community-parent-friend-book, which asks four nouns to settle their own family meeting.
The grammar supplies association by position and possession by phelu, and gives the speaker enough room to say who is connected to the book and, when necessary, what that connection actually is.