The interlinear tag for partitives is Par.
The term phrase, as used here, refers to a syntactical construction denoting an entity or set of entities. It can consist of a pronoun, a noun, a noun plus one or more attributive clauses, or one or more attributive clauses with the noun implied. The noun (or implied noun) functions as the head of the phrase syntactically.
If one of the attributive clauses is a number or quantifier, it appears first in the phrase. Other attributive clauses usually follow the noun, but as with clauses, a contrastively focused component appears last.
Each attributive agrees with the head noun in gender and number.
A phrase can also include a partitive construction.
Partitive forms are relevent to superlatives, ordinals, and I forget what else.
A partitive form is a verb form using one of the partitive prefixes. Besides the copula, there are certain classes of stems that can have partitive forms. Attributive forms are the most commonly used, but other syntactical functions are possible. Note that some combinations of prefix and agreement are'nt possible.
See Other Person Affixes, Personal Pronouns and Their Partitives, and Other Pronouns for the forms.
A partitive indicates that some subset of a given set is denoted, or that a portion or portions of a given whole are denoted. The prefix specifies the set or whole and the suffix the subset or part.
The 3rd person partitives have two prefixes each: the latter is used when a phrase accompanies the partitive (elaborating the argument) and the former when no such phrase appears.
The argument of which a partitive phrase is an elaboration takes indefinite agreement.
See also Partitive Relative Clauses .
When a partitive pronoun is preceded by a number word, the cardinality of the subset or the number of portions specified is exactly that number (with which the pronoun agrees), but when no number word appears, the cardinality of the subset or the number of portions specified is undefined, with the number of pronoun specifying only the minimal number (i.e. "one" for the singular).
| .can/i mo/hea alza iza p'nit/i/n | ||||
| canni mo̅hea alza iza p'nitti̅n. | ||||
| "John is using just one of the knives." | ||||
| canni | 0-mo̅h-e-a | al-za | i-za | p'nitti̅-n |
| John | 3S.Dir-use-Ipf-Ind | one-InaS | 3P-InaS | knife-P |
| .k'loxa ila kompe/n | ||
| k'loxa ila kompe̅n. | ||
| "I saw one of the kompe (maybe more)." | ||
| k'-lox-a | i-la | kompe̅-n |
| 1S.Dir-see.Prf-Ind | 3P-AniS | kompe-P |
| .nilxa ti/n/o he/ka | ||
| nilxa ti̅nno he̅ka. | ||
| "A child saw some of them (at least two)." | ||
| ni-lx-a | ti̅nno | he̅-ka |
| Ind.Dir-see.Prf-Ind | child | 3P-AniP |
| .ko/lxa pik/a he/ka | ||
| ko̅lxa pikka he̅ka. | ||
| "We saw eight of them." | ||
| ko̅-lx-a | pik-ka | he̅-ka |
| 1XP.Dir-see.Prf-Ind | eight-AniP | 3P-AniP |
page started: 2009.Apr.03 Fri
prior version: 2009.Apr.03 Fri
last modified: 2009.Oct.20 Tue
content and form originated by qiihoskeh
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