| mashinaikana | books |
| nimashinaikana | my books |
To express that something belongs to us, nouns take a personal prefix that indicates the person of the possessor; for example, ni-, tshi-, or u-.
| mashinaikan | a book | |
| nimashinaikan | my book | |
| tshimashinaikan | your book | |
| umashinaikan | his or her book |
The personal prefixes used with nouns to express possession are almost the same as those used with verbs (to indicate the participants in the event) when they are conjugated in the independent mode.
| nimukuman | my knife | |
| ninipan | I sleep |
The “conjugation” of possessive nouns depends on their gender (animate or inanimate), their stem and whether or not they take the possessive suffix -im.
| Tables of Possessed Nouns: | ||
|---|---|---|
| NA with -im: | auass | |
| NI with -im: | tshiman | |
| NA without -im: | teueikan | |
| NI without -im: | massin | |