| (ii)
Pronouns |
| The
third person pronoun in the singular, though not marked for gender
overtly, indicates gender anaphoric ally by the substitution of the
nouns referring to male beings with one pronoun (pa `he’) and the
nouns referring to the female beings with another pronoun (li `she’).
In the case of nouns, wherever gender is indicated overtly, (excepting
in the case of personal nouns) a three-way opposition in gender is
available viz. common, masculine and feminine gender, of which separate
gender markers are available only for the masculine and feminine genders. |
| (iii)
Allomorphs of the gender morphemes |
| (a)
Common gender is not marked overtly. |
| (b)
Masculine gender : The morpheme for the masculine gender, is cö ¸/.
It has three allomorphs. These are cö ¸, li and du. The following
is the distribution of these allomorphs which is based on the class
of the noun. |
| (i)
cö ¸ occurs after AnHah class of nouns. |
| (ii)
lģ occurs after AnHahl class of nouns. |
| (iii)
du occurs after AnHb class of nouns. |
| (c)
Feminine gender : The morpheme for the feminine gender is /li/, which
incidentally is the III person personal pronoun in the singular. It
has five allomorphs. These are : lķ, qł, nģ, lķ and qu. The distribution
of these allomorphs, which is based on the class of the noun, is given
below : |
| (i)
li. It is a free form standing for the III person personal pronoun
in the singular substituting the nouns referring to the female beings.
In addition it occurs with AnHah class of nouns, provided the female
animals referred to by these nouns did not have any issues. |
| (ii)
qł. It occurs with AnHahl class of nouns, excepting the noun acö `dog’
provided the female animals referred to by these nouns have/had no
issues. |
nģ. It occurs after ac
‘dog’ provided the bitch referred to by these nouns has/had no issues.
|
| (iii)
lķ. It occurs with AnHb class of nouns, provided the female birds
referred to by these nouns has/had not laid eggs. |
| (iv)
qu. It occurs with AnH class of nouns, provided the female animal/birds
referred to by these nouns have/had issues or laid eggs. |
| 3.2.4.3.
Case |
| The
grammatical category of case is the most important inflectional category
of the noun, as tense is the most important inflectional category
of the verb. Although each of the case of the noun is given a label
suggestive of at least one of its principal Semantic functions, (for
instance, the dative case is associated with the notion of giving),
it is impossible to give a satisfactory general definition of the
category of the case itself on the basis of the surface structure.
|
|
The case in Sema, however, is not an inflectional category as it is
not expressed through inflections of either of the nouns or of the
pronouns. The case relationship in Sema is expressed through two devices.
viz. (1) marking overtly and (ii) a specified position within the
VP, as in : |
| ino
akģlo wśwya |
`I
went home (lit. I (nom.) house in go past) |
| 12
3 4 5 6 |
1
2 3
4 5 6 |
| ino
kaku lakhģ ocwya |
`I
gave you a book’ (lit. I (nom.) book one you give (past) |
| 12
3 4 5
6 7 |
1 2
3 4 5
6 7 |
|
|
| An
important feature of the case relationship in Sema is that it is the
property of the noun phrase, whenever marked overtly, as in : |
| aqhi
lakhģ lo |
`in
a month’ |
|
1 2 3 |
3 2 1 |
| ino
aksi
tipaw pe li heqi |
`I
beat her with that stick’ |
| 1
2 3
4 5 6 |
1
6 5 4
3 2 |
|
|
| 3.2.4.3.1
Case relations |
| In
all, seven case relationships are set up in Sema. These are nominative
(no-zero), accusative (unmarked), genitive (unmarked), instrumental
(pe), societies (sasö) and location (lo). |
