Karaja
Nouns table
| gloss | layer | nominal poss | 1 | 2 | 3 | 3 refl |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| forehead | lexeme | kɔrʊ | wakɔrʊ | akɔrʊ | ikɔrʊ | ɗakɔrʊ |
| hand | lexeme | dɛbɔ | wadɛbɔ | ɛbɔ | ɗɛbɔ | ɗɛbɔ |
| blood | lexeme | ləbʊ | waləbʊ | əbʊ | ɗəbʊ | ɗəbʊ |
| forehead | prefix | zero | wa | a | i | ɗa |
| hand | prefix | d | wad | zero | ɗ | ɗ |
| blood | prefix | l | wal | zero | ɗ | ɗ |
Karaja notes
- The morphological contrast found with possessed nouns (i-class as with 'forehead', ɗ-class as with 'hand') is also found with verbs, though here it is not obviously a matter of inflection class (as opposed to a formative prefix; in any case, Ribeira 2012 does not give comparative paradigms).
- Descriptive predicates (e.g. 'be angry', 'be crazy') take the same prefixes as possessed nouns (Ribeira 2012: 214), and are considered by Ribeira to be nouns, morphologically. They also display the same inflection class between i-class vs. ɗ-class (though it is not clear whether they also have the l-subtype, as with 'blood').
References
Ribeiro, Eduardo Rivail. 2012. A grammar of Karajá. PhD thesis, University of Chicago.