Chapter 172A Glossed Sakhalin Teaching Dialogue
Murasaki’s bowl dialogue with four tiers, contrasting possessive constructions and the use of final particles in statements and questions.
172.1 A Sakhalin teaching dialogue
This exchange is dialogue 4 in lesson 5 of Murasaki's revised Sakhalin Ainu conversation textbook. It introduces location and possession through a question about a bowl Murasaki (2025: 16). The book draws on material learned from Fujiyama Haru, Ōta Yuku, and Asai Take, principally representing Raichishka. Murasaki explains that the edited teaching dialogues have no recordings by the elders; the labels A and B do not identify particular consultants Murasaki (2025: preface and transcription conventions).
The first tier preserves Murasaki's romanization. The remaining tiers add segmentation, grammatical glosses, and English translations. Apostrophes follow the printed glottal-onset notation; doubled vowels remain doubled. The equals sign separates person marking in the segmented tier.
172.2 Whose bowl is it?
taata hemata 'ani hii?
‘A: What is there?’
Murasaki 2025: 16; Sakhalin (cited for contrast)
Murasaki explains the inserted i before the final particle on page 19.
tara 'itanki nakorope hee?
‘A: Whose bowl is that?’
Murasaki 2025: 16; Sakhalin (cited for contrast)
tan 'itanki kukorope hee. 'e'itankihi nahta 'ani hii?
‘B: This bowl is mine. Where is your bowl?’
Murasaki 2025: 16; Sakhalin (cited for contrast)
Kukorope is segmented as the person-marked possessive predicate followed by pe; nakorope in the preceding turn is left unanalyzed.
172.3 Two possessive constructions
The reply calls the bowl ku=koro pe, ‘the thing I have’. The next question and answer use affiliative 'itanki-hi with person marking for ‘your bowl’ and ‘my bowl’. These constructions express possession through a verb and through the noun's morphology, respectively. The last answer combines the possessed noun with negative existential 'isam Murasaki (2025: 16–17).
Hokkaido also has possessive predicates with kor and affiliative nouns, but the forms and their usage must be compared within each description. Tangiku discusses Sakhalin suffix classes and contextual differences between possessive constructions Tangiku (2022: §§4.1–4.2). See Chapter 43 (Possessive Constructions and Alienability) and Chapter 162 (Sakhalin and Northern Kuril Comparisons).
172.4 Questions and final particles
Murasaki lists hii/hee among final particles used in affirmative, negative, and interrogative sentences. Her explanation associates questions with falling intonation and other uses with rising intonation. A consonant-final word gains i before the particle, as in 'an-i hii Murasaki (2025: 19, §④).
The same hee therefore appears in the question about ownership and in the assertion ‘This bowl is mine’. The gloss FIN records its sentence-final role without assigning every occurrence an interrogative meaning. Murasaki lists nakorope as ‘whose thing’ and nahta as ‘where’ Murasaki (2025: 19, §⑤).