wàra (to split) follows the possessor m. Possessor switch requires the verb to be placed nearer to the possessor. The grammatical (8b) does so switching wàra with the possessor: Genitive-noun ordering The Maybrat languages in New Guinea vary the order of the genitive case and the noun between alienable and inalienable constructions: In (9), the genitive Sely precedes the possessee me, marking inalienable possession. However, the genitive follows the possessee in alienable possession constructions, such as (10) whose genitive Petrus follows the possessee amah. Possessor marking Explicit possessors Another way for languages to distinguish between alienable and inalienable possession is to have one noun class that cannot appear without an explicit possessor. For example, Ojibwe, an Algonquian language, has a class of nouns that must have explicit possessors. If explicit possessors are absent (as in (11b) and (12b)), the phrase is ungrammatical. In (11), the possessor ni is necessary for the inalienable noun nik (arm). In (12), the same phenomenon is found with the inalienable noun ookmis (grandmother), which requires the possessor morpheme n to be grammatical. Prepositions Hawaiian uses different prepositions to mark possession, depending on the noun's alienability: a (alienable of) is used to indicate alienable possession as in (13a), and o (inalienable of) indicates inalienable possession as in (13b). However, the distinction between a (alienable of) and o (inalienable of) is used for other semantic distinctions that are less clearly attributable to common alienability relationships except metaphorically. Although lei is a tangible object, but in Hawaiian, it can be either alienable (15a) or inalienable (15b), depending on the context. Definite articles Subtler cases of syntactic patterns sensitive to alienability are found in many languages. For example, French can use a definite article, rather than the possessive, for body parts. Using the definite article with body parts, as in the example above, creates ambiguity. Thus, the sentence has both an alienable and an inalienable interpretation: Such an ambiguity also occurs in English with body-part constructions. Spanish also uses a definite article (el, los, la, or las) to indicate inalienable possession for body parts. German uses a definite article (die) for inalienable body parts but a possessive (meine) for alienable possession. No distinction in grammar Although English has alienable and inalienable nouns (Mary's brother [inalienable] vs. Mary's squirrel [alienable]), it has few such formal distinctions in its grammar. One subtle grammatical distinction is the postnominal genitive construction, which is