III.1  Dependent Inanimate Nouns (NDI)

Dependent inanimate nouns (NDI) consist primarily of inanimate body part terms (e.g. -cihciy- “hand”, -sit- “foot”, -iyaw- “body”) with a few additional personal items (e.g. -tās- “pants”, -īwat- “sacred bundle”, -skotākay- “coat, dress”, as well as -skīsikohkān- “eyeglasses”, -īpitihkān- “dentures”). The stem forms are listed with preceding and following hyphens to show that both prefixes and suffixes may be added. In fact, all dependent stems require some possessive person prefix such that the stem forms are never used as words on their own.

The person prefixes that can be added to dependent stems are similar if not identical to those already introduced for the possessive marking of independent stems. Indeed, if the dependent stem starts with a consonant, the three person marking prefixes take the familiar shape of first person ni-, second person ki- and third person o-. If the dependent stem starts with a vowel, however, the forms with a [t]-connector are rarely if ever used, and only a bare consonantal prefix occurs in the forms of first person n-, second person k- and third person w-. Even more important in setting the dependent noun paradigms apart is the fact that an additional “unspecified” person prefix must be used in the event one wishes to refer to a dependent stem without reference to the possessor. This unspecified possessor (XPoss) takes the form of mi- preceding consonant-initial stems, and simply m- before vowel-initial stems. All of these prefixes are summarized in the following table.

Table III.0.1
Possessive prefixes for Dependent Inanimate Nouns

Person		prefix
		Consonant-Initial Stem	Vowel-Initial Stem
unspecified possessor	XPoss	mi-	m-
first person possessor	1Poss	ni-	n-
second person possessor	2Poss	ki-	k-
third person possessor	3Poss	o-	w-

 

Though far less common than independent NI stems, NDI stems can occur in (almost) all of the full range of inanimate noun subclasses. The full paradigms, including plural number, plural person-marking suffixes, locatives and diminutives will be introduced for each of the subclasses of dependent inanimate noun stem.

Dependent Inanimate Nouns:

• Regular Stems (NDI₁)
• Vowel-Glide Stems (NDI₂)
• Consonant-/w/ Stems (NDI₃)
• Single-Syllable Stems (NDI₄ & NDI_4w)
• Irregular Stems (NDI₅)