SMG

Lavukaleve (East Papuan)

Mismatch: word class: verb/noun

Lavukaleve has person-number prefixes which mark subject when attached to verbs, and possessor when attached to nouns. Possessive prefixes are distinct from subject prefixes in two respects:

1st singular possessive is nga-, 1st singular subject is a-.
Possessive prefixes are associated with a stress shift: with monosyllabic and some disyllabic noun stems, stress falls on the prefix, e.g. 'o-nu 'his hair', 'o-tua 'his wife'. With verbal prefixes, however, stress falls on the stem, e.g. o-'liki 'wants it'.

A mismatch occurs with four verbs (pp. 368-372) which take possessive rather than the subject prefixes: feu 'go up', hau 'go in, go shorewards', vau 'go out, go seawards' and vo 'come'. As a result, the forms are morphologically indistinguishable from nouns. Note that they also take a suffix -i ~ -e, which is similar to a Lavukaleve nominalizing suffix, (though note it has different morphophonological properties: the verbal suffix is associated with deletion of a stem-final -u, while nominalizing suffix is not). The use of possessive prefixes is optional, and normal subject prefixes may be found with the same verbs:

normal subject prefix form	posessive prefix form
a-'vo	'nga-voe	'I came/come'
o-'feu	'o-fei	'he goes/went up'

(pp. 370)

There is apparently no difference in meaning between the alternative forms. Terrill (2003) notes that the possessive prefix forms seem to be on the rise, since it is common in the speech of younger people but rare among older ones.

References

Terrill, Angela. 2003. A grammar of Lavukaleve. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.