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Pronouns
On the basis of the ability of showing a three-way opposition in person, viz., I, II and III persons, the pronouns could be differentiated from the nouns and the demonstratives as in :

ni `I’
no `you’
pa `he’
li `she’

The pronouns also show a three-way opposition in number viz., singular, dual and plural, as in

(i) ni `I’
  nikuzo `We (two)’
  nił `We (plural)’
(ii) no `you (sg)’
  nokuzo `you (dual)’
  noł `you(pl)’ etc.
(iii) pa `he’
  pama `they (dual)'
  panįł `they (plural)'

whereas the demonstratives show only a two-way opposition in number viz., singular vs plural as in:

hi `this’
hipaqó `these’

The nouns are capable of showing a three-way opposition in number, but usually do not mark this difference: e.g.

timi lakhi `one man’
time kma `two men’
timģqó `men’

Even here nouns referring to non-human beings do not take the form köma which indicates duality.
A pronoun may be defined as that grammatical class which at the paradigmatic level shows a three-way opposition in number and person and capable of taking case markers and at the systematic level is capable of preceding a postposition and/or particle but incapable of being modified by an adjective and at the sentence level substitutes a noun:
Demonstratives
Both the nouns and the demonstratives share at the paradigmatic level the feature of taking the case suffixes and at the systematic level, the privilege of preceding postpositions and the plural marker. e.g.

hipaqóye ackini `these are two dogs’
anuye akipici `the child (is) lazy’
tiye lono ic `give me from that’
anulono `from the child’
ti `that’
tipaqó `those’
kaku `book’
kakuqó `books’

However, when a NP has both a demonstrative and a noun, the demonstrative takes the case suffix/focus marker and the plural marker as in :

ilimģ tipawye qhemFay `that girl (is) tall’
ilimģ tipaqóye qhemFay `those girls (are) tall’

In a NP1 NP2 type of sentence, both a demonstrative and noun can occur alone in NP2 position, but only a noun or adjective can occur alone in NP2 position and not a demonstrative as in :

hie aclakhģ `this (is) a dog’
anuye akipici `the child (is) lazy’
hie inu `this (is) my child’

A demonstrative may be formally defined as that grammatical class which at the paradigmatic level is capable of taking case suffixes and at the systematic level is capable of preceding a post position/plural marker and when both a demonstrative and a noun occurs in a NP, the demonstrative takes both the case and plural markers, if any, but can not occur alone in a NP3 position of NP1, NP2 type of sentence.
Nouns
The nouns in Sema are capable of taking gender, number and case markers including the postpositions and could also function as the nucleus of a noun phrase as in :

anuye `the child’
amsili `she buffalo’

 

 

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