being necessarily associated with the possessor. The distinction is marked by a possessive suffix inserted before the relevant pronoun. Possessive particles: (alienable) expresses dominant possession Alienable possession is used to refer to a person's spouse, children, food, books, work, all animals (except horses), all tools and gadgets (including refrigerators), and some illnesses. (children) is an alienable possession therefore a is used to indicate that in this sentence, therefore the possessive pronoun a is used instead of ooku. (inalienable) expresses the subordinate possession It is used with parents, siblings, house, furniture, transports (including carts, cars, scooters, boats, airplanes), clothes, feeling, native land, parts of the body (including mind), horses, and their bridles. Inalienable possession o is used in this example, therefore ooku instead of aaku is used. It is talking about the speaker's brother, which is an inalienable relation. There are no markers to distinguish between temporary or permanent possession; the nature of objects possessed; or between past, present or future possession. A and O possession A and O possession refer to alienable and inalienable possession in Rapa Nui. marks for alienable possession and marks for inalienable possession. a and o are marked as suffixes of the possessive pronouns; however, they are only marked when the possessive pronoun is in the first, second or third person singular. In (2) above, taina 'sibling' is inalienable and the possessor is first person singular ooku 'my'. However, for all the other situations, a and o are not marked as a suffix of the possessor. In the above example, the possessor mee 'those' is not a possessive pronoun of the first, second or third person singular. Therefore, o is marked not as a suffix of the possessor but a separate word in the sentence. Classifiers There are no classifiers in the Rapa Nui language. Exclamation Ko and ka are exclamatory indicators. suggests a personal reaction: Ko te aroha (Poor thing!) suggests judgement on external events: Ka haakiaki (Tell the whole story!) Compound words Terms which did not exist in original Rapa Nui were created via compounding: = ('spear fish') = harpoon = ('spear food') = fork = ('skin foot') = shoe = ('bird spear') = wasp = ('stool horse') = saddle = ('stool stay') = chair Negation In Rapa Nui, negation is indicated by free standing morphemes. Rapa Nui has four main negators: ina (neutral) kai (perfective) (e)ko (imperfective) tae (constituent negator) Additionally there are