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     In noun phrases, which are composed of a head and a modifier, the plural marker is added to the whole noun phrase. Thus in the linear order, this marker follows the modifier.

 

kí tu?lu
house big ‘big house’
 
kí tu?lutem
house big, ‘big houses’
 
nisó tàcó
person good ‘good person’
 
ninsó tàcótem
person good ‘good persons’
 
nao temesu
flower white ‘white flower’
 
nao temesutem
flower white Pl.       ‘white flowers’      
 
     When a numeral is present indicating a number more than one,’ the plural makrer /-tem/ is optionally dropped. When the plural marker is present it follows the numeral, for instance,
‘house’ kítem ‘houses’
       
kí aná ‘house two’ ‘two houses’  
       
kí asem ‘house three’ ‘three houses’  
       
kí té ‘house ten’ ‘ten houses’  
 
     The plural marker exclusively used with human personal and interrogative pronouns is /-nok/.
 
‘I’ o-nok ‘we (excl.)’
    ase-nok ‘we (incl)’
 
‘you (sg.)’ ne-nok ‘you (pl)’
 
‘he’  }  
‘she’ } panok ‘they’
sipa ‘who’ siye-nok ‘who (pl.)’
 
     The stem variants of the pronouns are discussed in the next section.
 
2.2.4. Personal Pronouns :
     The personal pronouns in Ao distinguish three persons, two numbers and three genders as follows :
 
      Person : First person, Second person and Third person.      
      Number : Singular and Plural

     Gender : Human masculine and human feminine and non-human. The masculine feminine is found only in third person human singular. Thus the gender distinction in pronouns is different from the gender distinction in substantives discussed above. In the substantives the distinction is between animate and inanimate, and not between human and non-human as in pronouns.

 
TABLE - 1
             
   

Singular

      Plural
             
1st person  

‘I’

  asenok   ‘we (incl)’
        onok   ‘we (excl)’
        ~unok    
2nd Person  

‘you’

  nenok   ‘you’
             
3rd Person            
             
Human : Mas.

‘he’      {

  panok   ‘they’

"

Fem.    lá   ‘she’   {      
             
Non-human      ipá   ‘it’   item   ‘they’
 
 

 

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