Part
A: The Simple Sentence
3.
Noun Possession
In English, a noun is possessed by placing the words 'his,
her, its' ahead of it. A noun is possessed in Denes¶øiné
by adding a prefix be to the noun.
| bes |
'knife' |
| bebezé |
'his
knife' |
or |
| ¿ih |
'garment' |
| be¿iyéh |
'his garment'
|
or |
| jis |
'mitts' |
| be jisé |
'his mitts' |
It
will be observed that when each word is possessed, a suffix
e is added to the noun. This does not always occur and
no rule has yet been defined for using it. Note the following
exceptions:
| bechele |
'his
younger brother' |
| bekóp |
'his house' |
Other forms of the possessive prefix are se 'my',
ne 'your', be 'his, her, its', nuh
'our, your (pl)', hube 'their or 'somebody's'.
| seké |
'
my foot' |
| netthplé |
' your
(s g.) axe' |
| nuhtsíe |
'our/your
(pl) grandfather' |
| hubetá |
'somebody's
father' |
The two meanings of nuh 'our' and 'your' can only be identified
by the context.
ye 'his, hers, its' is used to distinguish between persons
when there is more than one person being talked about
in the sentence.
| Bekóp
nádher |
'He
is staying at his house' |
| Yekóp
nádher |
'He is
staying at his (someone else's) house' |
Hube 'their' is used infrequently, the singular form be,
being substituted if the context makes the meaning clear.
Certain variant
forms of the possessive prefixes do occur in certain words,
although these may be predictable on the basis of fusion.
But because there seems to be only a small number of them,
they can probably be just as easily memorized individually
as they are discovered; e.g. ,
| betßú |
'his
nose' |
| büyeze |
'his son' |
| bunaghe |
'his older
brother' |
Some nouns
are used in place of verbs and are called verbal nouns.
One of these, betßü
'he has it', we have already considered. Also note:
| begqn |
'He
is thin' |
| biníé |
'He is
happy' |
These words
can also be used with other possessive prefixes; e.g.,
| Setsü |
‘I
have it’ (it’s mine) |
| Negqn |
‘you
are thin’ |
| Nuhiníéh |
‘we
are happy’ |
| Netseø húsä? |
‘are
you wet?’ |
Sometimes betßü
is used as a possessive word instead of a verbal noun.
This is usually only used with the one word, øü,
although in some dialects it can be used with certain
other words.
| Setßü øü |
‘my
dog’ |
| Netßü øü |
‘your
dog’ |
| Betßü øü
nechá |
‘his
dog is big’ |
