Kinship terms: Person marking

As mentioned in the general discussion of Kashaya kinship terms, these words always include information about the "possessor" or person involved in the relationship, since kinship in a relationship between two or more people. For this reason, it is not possible to say "a mother" in general; you have to say "my mother" or "your mother", although "his/her/their mother" can also serve in the more general meaning "a mother". This person is the possessor of the kinship bond and is expressed by a prefix, and sometimes also a suffix (especially for "my").

Here are the forms with the root ki for "older brother". The only person distinctions are first person ("my, our"), second person ("you, you all"), and third person ("his, her, their"); there are no differences with regard to singular or plural for the person in the relationship, or for different genders. The special "reflexive" third-person is used when the person in the kin relation is also the subject of the sentence; see more here.

These words illustrate most of the patterns used in marking the person in a kinship term. Every such word uses the same means of marking second and third person, with consistent prefixes.

The third-person miyá·- always has a long vowel that takes the accent, whereas the other forms follow the usual rules for Kashaya accent. Further, if a laryngeal increment follows this suffix, it is deleted (see "mother" below, as well as "spouse" later on).

Note that it is possible to clarify number or gender by adding a possessive pronoun, as in yaʔkʰe ʔá·penʔ "our father" (common in prayers), ma·daʔkʰe miyá·cusʼ "her maternal uncle", mu·kínʔkʰe miya·diki "his older sister"; and plurality by adding a clitic, as in miyá·ki yacʰma "the older brothers" or cu·sʼénʔ yacʰma "my uncles; my mother's brothers". They can be used together, as in yaʔkʰe qá·sʼenʔ yacʰma "our maternal grandmothers; our mothers' mothers".

Core patterns

With very limited exceptions, all first-person kinship words have the suffix -nʔ in their basic (subjective) form. Three words, which would otherwise be just one syllable long, have the prefix ʔa·- as shown here.

These words have no suffix in the other person forms.

There is considerable variation in the form of "father" (pe, ʔe, me), which depends on the person. The only irregularity in the prefixes is that mi- occurs as me- when the root ʔe follows, found only with "father".

Another seven words have a suffix -sʼ that occurs in all but the informal first-person forms, which are discussed separately. All refer to the grandparents generation, as well as a parent's older sibling of the same gender, or a sibling of the opposite gender). For these words, the first-person (formal) has no prefix, but the root contains a long vowel. Combined with the first-person suffix the -sʼ is realized as -sʼenʔ with a vowel between the two suffixes.

Technically, the vowel of the root is long in all these cases, but in the non-first-person it undergoes closed-syllable shortening because of the following -sʼ suffix. However, the accent shifts rightward due to the underlying long vowel, and can fall on the next word, as indicated by the mark ʹ.

Together these ten kinship terms are the core of the system. They all occur with special informal first-person forms, included here for reference, but explained elsewhere since they have various complications.

Additional patterns

Outside these core words, the other kinship terms do not have informal versions. They tend to have complications especially in the first person but also sometimes in the other persons.

These examples have -nʔ only in the first person, and lack that suffix in the other persons, like those above. But the first four, which all end in ki, show a long vowel when the prefix is mi- or ma- (where e· alternates with i). The final example uses the female name suffix -menʔ rather than -nʔ, no doubt because -nʔ has another use in Kashaya as a male name suffix.

The word for "granddaughter" contains the female suffix -menʔ in all persons. The second form – which refers to a specific "mutual in-law" relationship – has at stem that ends in -nʔ and so this is found in every form, without an extra -nʔ suffix for the first-person.

This next set of sibling-in-law terms involves and extra element ma in the first-person, as well as some optional variation. "Spouse's sister" (a specific kind of sister-in-law) always has the suffix -menʔ in the first-person (like "brother's wife", the other kind of sister-in-law), but optionally keeps that suffix in all the other persons. This can lead to ambiguity with the reflexive, which is found with some of the other terms as well. The repeated use of the root ha· along with variation in the choice of suffixes (including the male suffix -kinʔ) creates potential ambiguity among different kin relations as well (such as "your spouse's sister" and "your spouse's brother" if no suffix is included).

The remaining words have distinct forms in the first person (known as suppletion), but continue to follow the usual pattern for the other persons. These end in -nʔ or a related suffix in the first person.

The distinction between male and female younger sibling, and male and female spouse, is observed in the first person but not in other persons; and for a spouse, the same root is used and the only difference is the male versus female suffix.

Finally, several kin terms use the respectful clitic =yaʔ in the first person, since in-law relations in Kashaya are handled with delicacy. Once again, however, the other persons follow the usual pattern.

For "son-in-law", the word for "man" (plus the respect marker) is used. For the parents-in-law, the element tʼile is the same as that found in respectful titles for any older man (tʼilekinʔ) or woman (tʼilemenʔ)

See the separate discussions of the meanings the kinship roots as well as the kinship case forms.