more information. Possession in Marquesan is marked by prepositional particles affixed to the noun phrase which they modify. These prepositional particles relate the phrase as a whole to other parts of the sentence or discourse and therefore can be considered centrifugal particles. Possession is essentially different from the other types of adposition modification in that it marks a relationship between two noun phrases as opposed to that between the verbal phrase and the noun phrase. There are four possession markers in Marquesan. They are the prepositions: , , and . Possessive prepositions and translate as 'of' while and are attributive, possessive prepositions which translate either as 'belong to, of' or 'for'. a and o possessive prepositions In these examples, the relation of two noun phases with the use of the possessive prepositions and can be seen. The preposition is affixed to the possessor noun phrase which in turn dominates the possessed phrase. na and no attributive, possessive prepositions In these examples, we see the relation of constituents which form a noun phrase. This is an example of attributive, alienable possession. Dominant vs subordinate possession Marquesan distinguishes between two contrastive types of possession. The first can be described in very broad terms as possession in which the possessor is dominant, active, superior, or in control of the possessed. and mark this type of possession: On the other hand, and indicate possession where the possessor is subordinate, passive, inferior to, or lacking in control over the possessed: Locative phrases Locative constructions in Marquesan follow this pattern (elements in parentheses are optional): Preposition - (Modifier) - lexical head - (Directional) - (Demonstrative) - (Modifier) - Possessive Attribute/Attributive Noun Phrases This locative syntactic pattern is common among Polynesian languages. Dialect diversity North Marquesan is spoken in the northern islands (Nuku Hiva, Ua Pou, and Ua Huka), and South Marquesan in the southern islands (Hiva Oa, Tahuata, and Fatu Hiva). In Ua Huka, which was almost entirely depopulated in the 19th century and repopulated with people from both the Northern and Southern Marquesas, the language shares traits of both North Marquesan and South Marquesan. Comparative data on the various dialects of Marquesan can be found in the Linguistic Atlas of French Polynesia (Charpentier & François 2015). The most noticeable differences between the varieties are Northern Marquesan in some words where South Marquesan has or (glottal stop), and in all words where South Marquesan has .