Mismatch: morphosemantics: alienability (marginal)
Schütz (1985: 463) notes a semantic mismatch in the use of inalienable (direct) versus inalienable (indirect) possession constructions. Body parts typically take inalienable possession marking, characterized by a suffixed pronoun (alienable possession involves the use of a free possessive form). However, some anatomical terms use the alienable possession construction, contrary to expectations. What is interesting here is that while these nouns do not seem to form a natural semantic class, they do form a morphological class, in that they have the prefix i-. Normally, i- is a deverbal noun prefix (Bill Palmer, p.c.), though for some of these nouns there is no synchronic relationship to any existing verb (Churchward 1941: 34).
References
Churchward, C. Maxwell. 1941. A new Fijian grammar. Suva, Fiji: Government Press.
Schutz, Albert J. 1985. The Fijian language. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.