Hawaiian possession

Hawaiian possessive particles come in pairs distinguished by the vowels a and o: kaʻu puke "my book" vs koʻu makuahine "my mother". The choice is relation-based rather than a lexical noun class ([Wil76]): relations the possessor creates or instigates take a (children, spouses, food, implements), while relations outside the possessor's control (body parts, parents, siblings, chiefs) take o, as do those in which the possessed serves as the possessor's location (houses, clothing, ridden animals). The same noun shifts class with the relation: koʻu hale "my house (I live in)" vs kaʻu hale "my house (that I built)".

Hawaiian has no verb "to have" ([EP79]): predicative possession is a verbless sentence with a genitive possessor — He puke kaʻu "I have a book" (lit. "a book of-mine"), the pepeke nonoʻa of [BBW+24]. Adnominal possessors carry the particle a or o (ka hale o Pua "Pua's house") while the possessum stays unmarked, and no noun requires possessive marking.

References

• [Wil76] — the control analysis of the a-class vs o-class contrast
• [EP79] — reference grammar; possessives and verbless ownership sentences §8.4, the a-form vs o-form possessives §9.6
• [BBW+24] — the possessive sentence (pepeke nonoʻa)
• [Sta13a] — WALS 117A, the Genitive predicative type

def Hawaiian.Possession.obligatoryPossession : Possession.Obligatoriness

No Hawaiian noun requires a possessor.

Equations

• Hawaiian.Possession.obligatoryPossession = Possession.Obligatoriness.noObligatory

def Hawaiian.Possession.possessiveClassification : Possession.Classification

The a-class vs o-class contrast. WALS 59A codes the parallel Māori system as unclassified and Rapanui as two-class.

Equations

• Hawaiian.Possession.possessiveClassification = Possession.Classification.twoWay

def Hawaiian.Possession.predicativeStrategy : Possession.PredicativeStrategy

The pepeke nonoʻa possessive sentence He puke kaʻu "I have a book", an existential possessee with a genitive possessor and no locative marking. WALS 117A assigns this type to Māori and Tahitian.

Equations

• Hawaiian.Possession.predicativeStrategy = Possession.PredicativeStrategy.genitive

def Hawaiian.Possession.adnominalStrategy : Possession.AdnominalMarking

The possessor carries the genitive particle a or o while the possessum stays unmarked (ka hale o Pua "Pua's house").

Equations

• Hawaiian.Possession.adnominalStrategy = Possession.AdnominalMarking.dependentMarking