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