ɔhɔfuɡul

[ɔ.hɔ.fu.ˈɡul]

his/her brothers-in-law

ɔhɔ -fuɡ -ul
brother.in.law -3sg.POSS -pl

Panim (Qanim) (ISO 639-3: pnr) – ~10 speakers (all aged over 50) plus a few hundred heritage speakers with some knowledge of basic words and phrases, Panim, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea.

In Panim, most nouns fall into the class of ‘alienably possessed nouns’ (APNs), which means they refer to objects that can exist independently of their possessor (e.g. asul “coconut”). In addition, Panim has a small group of ‘inalienably possessed nouns’ (IAPNs), which includes most body parts, kinship terms, and few related concepts (e.g. name, shadow).

In the case of inalienable possession in Panim, the possession relationship is marked not on the possessor (as in the English ‘possessive’ construction, e.g. the dog’s leg), but on the possessed item itself, a construction known as the ‘pertensive’.

Of particular interest for Panim is that kinship terms have different pertensive suffixes depending on the person and number of the possessor (1sg, 1du, 1pl, 2sg, 2&3du, 2&3pl, and 3sg) and the number of the possessum (sg, pl), a total of 14 possible combinations. There is a great deal of irregularity, including suppletion, near-suppletion, and ablaut.

The paradigm for “brother-in-law” below is illustrative, in that it shows both ablaut and near-suppletion. Observe that “his brothers-in-law” does not share a single phoneme with “my brother-in-law”. The table shows another commonly-occurring irregularity: the first-person-possessed forms have /s/ where all others have /h/. Here is the full paradigm (with suffixes separated):

Possessed = singular
1st person singular possessor: oso-mi “my brother-in-law”
1st person dual possessor: oho-mili “our (du) brother-in-law”
1st person plural possessor: oho-migi “our (pl) brother-in-law”
2nd person singular possessor: oho-m “your (sg) brother-in-law”
2nd & 3rd person dual possessor: oho-mala “your (du)/their (du) brother-in-law”
2nd & 3rd person plural possessor: oho-mag ~ oho-maga “your(pl)/their (pl) brother-in-law”
3rd person singular possessor: ɔhɔ-f “his/her brother-in-law”

Possessed = plural
1st person singular possessor: oho-mi-al ~ oso-mi-ni “my brothers-in-law”
1st person dual possessor: oho-mili-l “our (du) brothers-in-law”
1st person plural possessor: oho-migi-l “our (pl) brothers-in-law”
2nd person singular possessor: oho-mon-al “your (sg) brothers-in-law”
2nd & 3rd person dual possessor: oho-mala-l “your (du)/their (du) brothers-in-law”
2nd & 3rd person plural possessor: oho-maga-l “your (pl)/their (pl) brothers-in-law”
3rd preson singular possessor: ɔhɔ-fuɡ-ul “his/her brothers-in-law”

Source: Neil Alexander Walker, personal field notes, 2018–19.

Credits: Neil Alexander Walker, Lihot, Lateg, Henry, and Malol (Panim Elders)