Page:A Sketch of Mota Grammar.djvu/11

(7) It will have been seen that there is something of inflection in what may be called the possessive case of the noun (though the word inflected represents the thing possessed, not the possessor); but this is indeed but the rejection of termination, and not the modification of the true noun: i.e. in qat qoe, 'a pig's head,' qat is the true form of the word, which is lengthened into qatui, when it stands absolute, by the special substantival termination ui.

There is besides a further and truer inflection undergone by words whose radical ends in the vowel a, which in what has been called the possessive case becomes e. Thus sasa, 'a name,' standing absolute, and with the termination; na-sasa-k, 'my name,' the radical with the pronominal affix; but o sas tanun, 'a man's name,' with the radical inflected in the possessive case.

It is, however, probably much better not to speak of a possessive case, but to regard the word as in composition, in which the first member of the compound very naturally takes a lighter termination.

But it should be observed that when the two substantives thus form a compound word, it represents what in English would be expressed by the possessive case. When in an adjective, i. e. where it qualifies the noun, there is no compound form, there is no inflection in Mota: thus o ime qoe, 'a pig's house,' with the notion of a pig whose house it is; but o ima qoe, 'a pig house,' as distinct from a man's habitation. O sinage vui, 'a spirit's food;' o sinaga vui, 'spiritual food.' (Caution.—There are some errors in this matter in our translations.)

This inflection obtains in words whose radicals end in a, whether they take a substantival termination or not. Naui, 'a leaf,' is inflected no; no tangae, 'a tree's leaf,' an example of a small class. It is desirable perhaps here