Possessing alienable nouns

Alienable nouns are nouns that can be separated from their owner, for example, a book, a tree, a dog, or a box. In other words, they are something you can easily give away.

Expressing possession with alienable nouns is simple: you take the verb kor 'to own; to have; to posses', attach a relevant person marker to the verb and put it in front of the noun; for example, if you attach the first person singular person marker ku- to the verb kor, you get ku-kor 'I have; I posses.' If you place the phrase in front of noun, let's say suwop 'a box', you will get ku-kor  suwop 'my box', literally 'I-owned box' or 'the box that I own'. Let's see some examples.

Examples 1

1. tanpe ku-kor kanpisos ne. This is my book.

2. toanpe ku-kor seta somo ne. toanpe e-kor seta ne. That is not my dog. That is your dog.

3. esinotpe kor suwop esik. His box is full of toys. (Lit. Toys fill his box.)

4. e-kor nonno pirka. Your flower is beautiful.

5. iyohay! huci kor santoku isamka! Oh my! Granny lost her wallet!

Vocabulary 1

• tanpe (N) — this
• ku- (PM) — the first person singular subject marker; 'I do'; my
• kor (VT) — to have something; to own something; to possess something
• kanpisos (N) — book
• ne (COP) — to be
• toanpe (N) — that
• seta (N) — dog
• somo (ADV) — not
• e- (PM) — the second person singular subject marker; 'You do'; your
• esinotpe (N) — toy
• suwop (N) — box
• esik (VT) — to be full of something; is filled with something
• nonno (N) — flower
• pirka (VI) — to be good; to be beautiful
• iyohay (INT) — oh my!; my gosh!
• huci (N) — granny; grandmother; elderly lady
• santoku (N) — wallet
• isamka (VT) — to lose something

Note that the example 4 has a sound assimilation at the border the words e-kor and nonno. When 'r' and 'n' collide like this, the /r/ sound changes into /n/ sound. So, e-kor nonno is pronounced as /ekon nonno/.

In general, Ainu doesn't make a difference between short and long vowel sounds. Usually, the vowels are pronounced short in Saru variety, but in certain words  long vowels are more common. The interjection iyohay 'oh my' is one of them: The /o/ sound in iyohay is usually pronounced as a long vowel, as iyoohay.

Possessing inalienable nouns: Conceptual form and affiliative (possessive) form

While expressing possession of things you can easily give away is quite straightforward, saying things like 'my hand,' 'your home,' 'the girl's younger brother,' or 'the footprints of the fox' becomes more complicated. The things possessed in the examples—hand, home, younger brother, and footprints—are considered inalienable possessions in Ainu. To show the ownership of these things, the noun needs to be changed into a special affiliative form (sometimes also called possessive form) and then you can directly attach the person marker on the noun: for example, 'hand' in Ainu is tek. When you want to say 'my hand', you need to change the word into its affiliative form teke and then attach the first person singular person marker ku- to the word. So, 'my hand' in Ainu is ku-teke. The form, to which you can't attach the person marker (in this case tek), is often called conceptual form as in contrast with the affiliative form (possessive form) (teke).

What kind of words are considered inalienable nouns?

So. What is then considered an inalienable possession in Ainu? The words belong to the following categories:

• body parts of humans and animals (head, hands, legs, wings, hoofs, etc.),

• things that are equivalent to body parts (mucus, tears, milk, shadow, collar, sleeve, etc.),

• relations with family members (mother, father, sister, brother, etc.),

• a part of a whole (handle, blade, string, lid, corner, etc.),

• ingredient/material of which a product is made of (sake made of ..., gruel made of ..., a house made of ..., etc.)

• other inseparable relation (age, smell, price, friend, etc.).

Some of these words—such as asur 'reputation; rumour', ser 'a part of; a portion of', ataye 'price; payment; value', tokuy '(close) friend'—might be a bit more difficult to think as inalienable nouns. Most of the time the logic behind the categorization is understandable, when you think about it for while. If you are not sure whether the word is considered inalienable or not, you can check the full list of nouns that have an affiliative/possessive form.

In this lesson, we put the focus on the words denoting parts of human body and after that we look at the words for family members, because they are a bit tricky.

Formation of the affiliative form

The affiliative form of the word looks the same as the conceptual form if the word ends in a vowel. For example the conceptual forms and affiliative forms of sapa 'head', etu 'nose', and kema 'leg' look the same. However, if the word ends in a consonant, the affiliative form looks different: there is an extra vowel attached to the end of the word. For instance, kisar 'ear' ends with a consonant, so it becomes kisara, otop 'hair (of the head)' becomes otopi, and nan 'face' becomes nanu in the affiliative form. There isn't really a good way to tell which vowel makes the affiliative form, so it's the best just to learn the most common forms by heart. There are not so many after all.

Notice also that even though they end in vowel, some words that consists of one syllable only might have different conceptual and affiliative forms. For example, ru 'track; footprint; path' becomes ruwe  and pi 'seed; nut' becomes piye in the affiliative form but so 'seat' looks the same both in conceptual form and affiliative form.

Examples 2

1. e-otopi tanne. Your hair is long.

2. ku-kor seta sapa pirka. My dog is smart. (Lit. 'My dog's head is good.')

3. teta cironnup rus an. There is a fox skin here.

4. teta cironnup an. cironnup rusi sonno pirka! There's a fox over there. The fur of the fox is very beautiful!

5. tan huci siki poro. The eyes of this grandma are large.

6. horkew kamuy mimaki een. Wolf's teeth are sharp.

Vocabulary 2

• e- (PM) — the second person singular subject marker; 'You do'; your
• otopi (N-AFF) — somebody's hair
• tanne (VI) — to be long
• ku- (PM) — the first person singular subject marker; 'I do'; my
• kor (VT) — to have something; to own something; to possess something
• seta (N) — dog
• sapa (N-AFF) — head
• pirka (VI) — to be good
• teta (ADV) — here
• cironnup (N) — fox
• rus (N) — pelt; fur
• an (VI) — to exist; to be (somewhere)
• toanta (ADV) — there; over there
• rusi (N-AFF) — pelt; fur; skin
• sonno (ADV) — very; really
• tan (DET) — this
• huci (N) — grandma; grandmother; elderly lady
• siki (N-AFF) — somebody's eye(s)
• poro (VI) — to be big; to be large
• horkew kamuy (N) — wolf
• mimaki (N-AFF) — somebody's tooth/teeth
• een (VI) — to be sharp; to cut well

The example sentences 3 and 4 highlight one important thing of the difference between conceptual and affiliative forms. In the example 3, cironnup rus 'fox fur' is used as a general term; the fox is not any specific fox we already know. So, we can't use the affiliative form in here but just use the conceptual form to refer to a generic 'fox pelt' to create a kind of compound word. But in the example 4, the fox is a know fox, so we can and we should use the affiliative form, cironnup rusi 'the fur of the fox.' This means that the affiliative form should be used only with known or specific possessors.

Short and long affiliative forms

For many of the inalienable nouns, there are actually two affiliative forms: a short affiliative form (eg. teke '(somebody's) hand') and a long affiliative form (eg. tekehe '(somebody's) hand'). The formation of the long affiliative form is easy: just take the short affiliative form, add an 'h' and whatever vowel the short form ends. For example:

• ikkew lower back' → ikkewe '(somebody's) lower back' + h + e → ikkewehe '(somebody's) lower back',

• parunpe 'tongue' → parunpe '(somebody's) tongue'+ h + e  → parunpehe '(somebody's) tongue',

• hon 'stomach; belly' → honi '(somebody's) stomach' + h + i  → honihi '(somebody's) stomach'.

They both have the same meaning and it's still quite unclear when to use which. It's not wrong to use always the short form or always the long form or mix them as you like but it seems that traditional Ainu speakers chose the form to create the most agreeable rhythm for the word. Also the speed of the speech affected the choice: short form was preferred with fast speech.

It also seems that "too long" words were avoided. Refsing (1986: 85) notes that in her material on the Shizunai variety of Ainu, "the short form is more frequent than the long and the long form appears more frequently with monosyllabic than with polysyllabic words. When it does appear in polysyllabic words, they have the accent kernel an the last syllable of the concept form." This might also be true with the Saru variety. For instance, the word askepet 'finger' has a short affiliative form of askepeci and a long form askepecihi (remember that there is no /ti/ sound in Ainu, so if /i/ sound comes after /t/, the /t/ changes into /c/ sound). If you attach the first person person marker ku- 'I; my' into these words, the long form becomes quite a long word, ku-askepecihi 'my finger(s)' (six syllables), so the short form is usually preferred: ku-askepeci 'my finger(s)'.

Nouns sometimes considered alienable, sometimes inalienable

The word for 'house' (as a physical thing), cise, is an interesting case. It does seem to have an affiliative form: cise (short) and cisehe (long), but whether it's thought to be alienable or inalienable depends on the Ainu variety. In some Ainu varieties, you can often see the form ku-cise or ku-cisehe 'my house'. In Saru variety, the house is mostly considered alienable, so 'my house' is ku-kor cise (notice again the sound assimilation at the word border: /r/ assimilates to /c/ and becomes a /t/ sound: /ku-kot cise/.) However, cise does have an affiliative form also in the Saru variety but it refers to the material the house is made of: reed, bamboo grass, bamboo, three brances, etc. The word kotan 'village' is a similar case, in the sense that it has affiliative form of kotanu(hu), but you can find it in texts in both forms of ku-kotanu 'my village' and ku-kor kotan 'my village'.

There are some other words, usually somehow culturally important, such as makiri 'knife' and tasiro 'machete' that can be considered either as alienable or inalienable item, so you can say either ku-kor makiri 'my knife' or ku-makiri(hi) 'my knife' and ku-kor tasiro 'my machete' or ku-tasiro(ho) 'my machete'. Both ways are used in the Saru variety of Ainu. The word uni 'home' again doesn't have a conceptual form at all, only short (uni) and long (unihi) affiliative forms.

As an interesting side note, in the Sakhalin varieties of Ainu, all the common nouns have affiliative forms. For example, to say 'my dog,' you can say ku-setaha., a form that is unacceptable in the Saru variety.

'My head hurts'

Now you can talk (and complain about) different kind of problems you might have with your body.

Examples 3

7. hay, ku-nimaki arka humi! ku-notakami sonno hupo! Ah, my tooth hurts! My cheek is really swollen!

8. e-siki mayayke siri. It looks your eyes are itchy.

9. ku-kema tukunne humi! My leg has gone to sleep!

10. tan cape wakka poronno ku. sonno rekucihi satsat. This cat drinks a lot of water. It's really thirsty. (Lit. It's throat is really dry)

11. iyohay! e-etu kemnu siri! Woah! Your nose is bleeding!

Vocabulary 3

• hay (INT) — (said when tired or in pain) oh; ah; ouch
• ku- (PM) — the first person singular subject marker; 'I do'; my
• nimaki (N-AFF) — tooth/teeth
• arka (VI) — to hurt
• humi (EV) — feels (like); sounds (like)
• notakami (N-AFF) — cheek
• sonno (ADV) — really
• hupo (VI) — to be swollen; to swell
• siki (N-AFF) — eye(s)
• mayayke (VI) — to itch
• siri (EV) — looks (like)
• kema (N-AFF) — leg; foot/feet
• tukunne (VI) — to become numb; to go to sleep (a limb etc.)
• tan (DET) — this
• cape (N) — cat
• wakka (N) — (cold) water
• poronno (ADV) — a lot; much; many
• ku (VT) — to drink something
• rekucihi (N-AFF) — throat
• satsat (VI) — to be dry
• iyohay (INT) — oh my!; my gosh!
• etu (N-AFF) — nose
• kemnu (VI) — to bleed

As a side note, the words humi and siri are called evidentials; a group of auxiliaries that express on what kind of evidence the statement said is based: is it something the person learned through by feeling, by hearsay,  by looking at something, or is it just a generally known fact. These are essential to form naturally sounding Ainu sentences. It sometimes difficult or even unnecessary to translate them in English, like in examples 7, 9, and 11.

In example 7, when the person says their head is hurting, they use humi 'feels like/that', so their knowledge on the matter is based on feeling. But when looking at someone else and saying something about the other person, the statement can't be based on a personal feeling. Instead the evidential siri 'looks like/that' is used, so the knowledge is based on seeing something. For now it's enough to know that these evidentials exist, they are frequently used in Ainu, and they are attached at the end of the sentence to add information on how the knowledge about the contents of the statement was acquired. We will learn more about these in a later lesson.

A list of common body parts

Here is a list of some of the most common body parts you might want to talk about.

※ From Horobetsu variety (I haven't been able to find the word used in Saru)

Talking about family members

In the last part of this lesson, we well learn how to talk about family members in Ainu. Surprisingly, talking about your family in Ainu is a bit tricky. For example, there are several words that refer to your closest relatives depending on whether you are directly addressing the person in question or neutrally telling about them to some third party. In addition, some of the family members are considered inalienable and others alienable. Some are even handled differently depending on the person you are using: for example, elder brother is considered as inalienable when "the owner" is the 1st person but it's alienable in other persons. Then there are small quirks, such as, that there are separate terms for elder and younger sisters and brothers, or that the word choice when referring to younger sister depends on whether the reference person identifies as a woman or a man.

There is a lot of variation between the different Ainu varieties on the family terms themselves but also in the way they are used within one variety. What's written here applies only to the Saru variety. In Saru, as a rule of thumb (of course with different kinds of exceptions), the family members that are part of the older generation than the reference person are considered alienable and the family members that are the same generation or younger than the reference person are considered inalienable.

Let's look at the terms one by one.

Mother/mom

The affectionate and intimate word for mother is hapo. This word is considered as alienable noun, so 'my mom' becomes ku-kor hapo. But when you are calling/addressing your mother, you just use plain hapo. The word has exceptional accent: hápo. Totto is baby talk for mother, so it's something like English "mama" or "mommy". The word literally means 'breasts' and has affiliative forms of totto/tottoho.

The words hapo and totto are affectionate and include a nuance of close feeling, but when talking neutrally and objectively about someone's mother, the word unu is used. Unu has affiliative forms unu/unuhu and the long form is used more often than the short one. Here's a summary of the forms to use when talking about someone's mother:

• My mom (affectionate and intimate): ku-kor hapo

• Your mom (affectionate and intimate): e-kor hapo

• Her/his mom (affectionate and intimate): kor hapo

• When calling your own mother: hapo! (or totto! if you are a baby/toddler)

• My mother (neutral and objective): k-unu/k-unuhu

• Your mother (neutral and objective): e-unu/e-unuhu

• Her/his mother (neutral and objective): unu/unuhu

Interestingly, in Chitose variety of Ainu, the word hapo means 'father.' This is interesting because the Saru and Chitose varieties are very very similar grammatically and by majority of vocabulary, too.

Father/dad

In Saru variety,  there are two affectionate words for father: mici (used in the upper reaches of the Saru river) and iyapo (used in the lower reaches of the Saru river). Like the word hapo 'mother', mici is in general considered an alienable noun, so you say e-kor mici for 'your father', except, in the 1st person singular the form ku-mici is used. The long form doesn't exist (so, no ku-micihi*). The form ku-mici is also used when you call for your own father. The word has exceptional accent: míci. The word used in the lower reaches of the Saru river, iyapo, is again considered as alienable in all persons, so the singular affiliative forms are: ku-kor iyapo, e-kor iyapo, and kor iyapo. But when you call your own father, the plain iyapo is used.

The two words—mici and iyapo—are affectionate and intimate words, and just like with the word for mother, there also is a neutral and objective word for father: ona with affiliative forms of ona/onaha. Similarly to unuhu '(someone's) mother', the long affiliative form onaha '(someone's) father' is used frequently.

• My father/dad (affectionate and intimate): ku-mici / ku-kor iyapo

• Your father/dad (affectionate and intimate): e-kor mici / e-kor iyapo

• Her/his father/dad (affectionate and intimate): kor mici / kor iyapo

• When calling your father: ku-mici! / iyapo!

• My father (neutral and objective): k-ona/k-onaha

• Your father (neutral and objective): e-ona/e-onaha

• Her/his father (neutral and objective): ona/onaha

Grandmother/grandmom

Talking about someone's grandmother is a bit easier than talking about father and mother.  The word huci is an alienable noun and is treated the same with all persons: ku-kor huci, e-kor huci, kor huci. The word has exceptional accent: húci. When calling or addressing your grandmother, the plain form huci is used. And just like hapo and mici, the word huci is affectionate and there is a separate neutral word for grandmother: sut with affiliative forms suci/sucihi.

• My grandma (affectionate and intimate): ku-kor huci

• Your grandma (affectionate and intimate): e-kor huci

• Her/his grandma (affectionate and intimate): kor huci

• When calling your own grandmother: huci!

• My grandmother (neutral and objective): k-suci/k-sucihi

• Your grandmother (neutral and objective): e-suci/e-sucihi

• Her/his grandmother (neutral and objective): suci/sucihi

Grandfather/grandpa

Things are coming more simple with grandfather. The word for grandfather, ekasi, behaves the same as the one for grandmother: it's used together with kor in all persons. The form to use when calling the person is ekasi or ku-kor ekasi. There is again neutral form of the word but it looks very much the same as the affectionate word. The neutral word is ekas with affiliative forms of ekasi/ekasihi, but I haven't seen this form used very much, and when used, it has only been in the oral literature.

• My grandpa (affectionate and intimate): ku-kor ekasi

• Your grandpa (affectionate and intimate): e-kor ekasi

• Her/his grandpa (affectionate and intimate): kor ekasi

• When calling your own grandfather: ekasi! / ku-kor ekasi!

• (Grandfather (neutral and objective): ekasi/ekasihi)

Older sister/elder sister

The affectionate word for a sister older than oneself is sapo 'elder sister'. When used in the 1st person singular, the form is ku-sapo (long form is not used) and for 2nd and 3rd persons singulars, the forms are e-kor sapo and kor sapo respectively. However, it's even more common to use the neutral term saha when talking about 3rd person's elder sister. The neutral form sa 'elder sister' doesn't seem to have short affiliative form, so only the form saha is used. The form ku-sapo is also used when calling/addressing the said sister. The affectionate word sapo actually comes from the neutral word sa: diminutive suffix -po 'small, little' is attached to sa 'elder sister' to create the affectionate form.

• My elder sister (affectionate and intimate): ku-sapo

• Your elder sister (affectionate and intimate): e-kor sapo

• Her/his elder sister: saha (or kor sapo)

• When calling your own sister: ku-sapo!

• My elder sister (neutral and objective): ku-saha

• Your elder sister (neutral and objective): e-saha

• Her/his elder sister (neutral and objective): saha

Older brother/elder brother

The affectionate word for a brother older than oneself is yupo 'elder brother'. It's used exactly as sapo 'elder sister': for the 1st person, the form ku-yupo is used, for the 2nd person, e-kor yupo, and for the 3rd person there is the form kor yupo, but the neutral form yupi '(someone's) elder brother' is preferred. The neutral word for elder brother is yup 'elder brother' in its conceptual form and its affiliative forms are yupi/yupihi. The form ku-yupo is used when addressing your own brother. The structure of the word yupo is similar to that of sapo: yup 'elder brother' + diminutive suffix -po 'small, little'.

• My elder brother (affectionate and intimate): ku-yupo

• Your elder brother (affectionate and intimate): e-kor yupo

• Her/his elder brother (affectionate and intimate): yupi (or kor yupo)

• When calling your own brother: ku-yupo!

• My elder brother (neutral and objective): ku-yupi/ku-yupihi

• Your elder brother (neutral and objective): e-yupi/e-yupihi

• Her/his elder brother (neutral and objective): yupi/yupihi

Younger sister

As there is a separate word for an elder sister, there needs to be one of a younger sister, too. Well, actually, not just one, but several. This time the difference in the word use, however, is not whether the word is affectionate or neutral, but the gender of the reference person determines which form to use. If the older sibling is a woman, the word to use is matak 'younger sister (of a woman)', and if the older sibling is a man, the word to use is matapa 'younger sister (of a man)'. These are both considered inalienable, so the younger sister of an older sister has the forms matak/mataki/matakihi and the the younger sister of an older brother has the forms matapa/matapa/matapaha. But again, this is not all. There is another word for the younger sister of an older brother: tures/turesi/turesihi. This word is only used oral literature, so in daily conversation the word matapa is used.

• My younger sister (of a woman): ku-mataki/ku-matakihi

• Your younger sister (of a woman): e-mataki/e-matakihi

• Her/his younger sister (of a woman): mataki/matakihi

• When calling your (woman's) own sister: ku-mataki! / ku-matakihi!

• My younger sister (of a man): ku-matapa/ku-matapaha

• Your younger sister (of a man): e-matapa/e-matapaha

• Her/his younger sister (of a man): matapa/matapaha

• When calling your (man's) own sister: matapa! / matapaha!

Younger brother

Finally, we have found a word that has no exceptions! The word for little brother is ak/aki/akihi 'younger brother' regardless the degree of intimacy or the gender of the older sibling.

• My younger brother: k-aki/k-akihi

• Your younger brother: e-aki/e-akihi

• Her/his younger brother: aki/akihi

• When calling your own brother: k-aki! / k-akihi!

Uncles and aunts

Uncle in Ainu is acapo and aunt is unarpe. They are both inalienable, so they are used with kor 'to have; to possess'.

• My uncle: ku-kor acapo

• Your uncle: e-kor acapo

• Her/his uncle: kor acapo

• When calling your own uncle: acapo! / ku-kor acapo!

• My aunt: ku-kor unarpe

• Your aunt: e-kor unarpe

• Her/his aunt: kor unarpe

• When calling your own aunt: unarpe! / ku-kor unarpe!

Other family members

Here is a list of other family members you might want to talk about. You can find many others in the list of nouns that have an affiliative/possessive form.

• son: po/—/póho

• daughter: matnepo/matnepo/matnepoho

• grandchild (granddaughter; grandson): mippo/mippo/mippoho

• nephew: karku/karku/karkuhu

• niece: matkarku/matkarku/matkarkuhu

• husband: hok/hoku/hokuhu

• wife: mat/maci/macihi

• sibling(s); brothers and sisters: irwak/irwaki/irwakihi

• cousin; second cousin: usatairwak/usatairwaki/usatairwak

The word irwak 'sibling(s)' can also refer more widely to any relative of the same generation, so not just brothers and sisters, but also cousins and second cousins, and if one your parents is the last born child, you might be quite close to the age of your uncles and aunts, so in that case they are included, too.

These words are not really used in affiliative form but they might be useful when talking about family relations, so two more! 

• married couple; husband and wife: umurek

• twins: sinetuy'op

Using family relation terms as vocatives

Huci 'grandmother', unarpe 'aunt', and ku-sapo 'my sister' are also used to address women who are actually not your relatives, but as a polite way to address women of certain age. Huci is used when the person addressed is about your grandmothers age, unarpe is used for middle-aged women, and ku-sapo women who are younger than middle-aged. This means that person you call ku-sapo might actually be younger than you.

Ekasi 'grandfather', acapo 'uncle', and ku-yupo 'my brother' are used similarly to address men regardless of the actual kinship status. Ku-yupo is used in the same way as ku-sapo also when politely addressing people who might be younger than the speaker and sometimes even by elder sister to address their younger brother!

Ok, that's all for this very very long lesson about owning and possessing things in Ainu.

By the way, the parts of body mentioned in the kamuy yukar "iwanrekutuspe" are: rekut/rekuci 'throat', sik/siki 'eye(s)', osoro/osoro(ho) 'buttocks', sapa/sapa 'head', tek/teke 'hand', and ikkewe/ikkewe 'lower back'. Did you hear all of them?

In the next lesson, we take a look at yet another a grammatical feature that doesn't exist in English: Person markers to express the object of a verb. You can move to the next lesson here: Object person markers.

Created on 2023/2/17, Latest update on 2024/9/25