The POSSESSIVE PRONOUN, when applied to anything which has no relation to our body, is the genitive of the personal pronoun, placed after the noun: purpur rak—my hat; naun rom—thy house; ton rok—his hatchet; mad romad—our clothes; domunemun romed—your food; uelduk rorou—the field of those two.
The possessives of nouns signifying parts of the body, or things relating to or proceeding from it, are formed as follows: the noun loses its last letter, when this is an i, and sometimes the last syllable, when it happens to be ngin, and then the last syllable of the genitive of the personal pronoun is used as a possessive suffix. For the first or second person singular, the suffix is -ak or -ek for the first person, -am or -em for the second person. I cannot, however, detect any rule whereby the vowel should be changed, nor can any rule be given for the third person.
Examples: lungai—mouth; lungak—my mouth; lungam—thy mouth; lungan—his mouth; lunga-dad—our mouths; lunga-med—your mouths; lunga-rad—their mouths; lolugei—head; lolugek—my head; lolugem—thy head, etc.
Relative Pronouns.—The idea of relation is expressed by the particle ni. Thus, faré abetir ni ior—the child that cries; nu ni keb—rain that falls.
By means of this ni, is formed the interrogative mini, which may be placed either before or after the noun. Thus, mini igur—who art thou? mini e romed—which of you? pianir mini—who are those women?
The following interrogative particles are used for animals and inanimate objects: mang—what? benin̄ḡan—which one? tinin̄ḡan—which ones? Galinin̄ḡan—which of those two?
When mini precedes a demonstrative personal pronoun, beginning with a consonant, and mang precedes a neuter demonstrative pronoun, they are followed by the particle e. Thus, mini e tsanei—who is this person? mang e binei—what is this (thing or animal)?
The INDEFINITE PRONOUNS are the following: tareb, or tab—one, the one; be—the other; dari—no one, no thing. Thus, tareb e pumawn ni keb—the man who comes; bine e naun, naun ku bë—this house is the house of the other man; dari pumawn u naun—there is no man at home.
VERBS
There is no substantive verb. The past, present, and future state must be gathered from the drift of the sentence. Its place is filled, however, by two particles ni and e; of which we have already had examples. Thus, faré māāb ni bin—the door is open; matsalabok e naun—clean is the house.