transitive verbs have 1st or 2nd person objects: The "..." indicates intervening lexical prefixes: nyekeka'naapa "tell me!". Finally, there exist special person prefixes for relative clauses in the subject position: 1st person: ny- 2nd person: m- 3rd person: ∅ Nouns Albeit much less than verbs, nouns also bear some morphology in Tiipai. Only 8 nouns in Tiipai bear plural morphology, and all of these seem to have originated as verbs—this paucity is also likely partly due to the fact that expressing plurality is not even obligatory on verbs. Interestingly, noun pluralization actually closely resembles the causative, but with only the prefixes ch- and aa- accompanying suffixes -ch and -a and root vowel length change. The two major instances in which nouns take affixes are possession and case. Tiipai distinguishes two types of possession: inalienable and alienable. Inalienable possession applies to body parts, some items of clothing, pechaay "daughter (man's term)", aa "language", shiimull "tribe, last name", and keyaw "behalf". The following person affixes appear on the possessed nouns: 1st person: ∅ 2nd person: m- 3rd person: ∅ All other nouns are considered alienably possessed. They inflect similarly, except with the additional prefix ny- appearing after the person affixes: menya'naak "your chair". The following markings indicating case are suffixed to the end of the noun phrase: -ch: subject case ∅: absolute case -i: locative case, realized as the allomorph -y following a vowel -m: instrumental, allative, or comitative case -k: ablative or locative case -lly: inessive or illative case Syntax The default word order of Tiipai is (S)(O)V. Overt expression of nouns is optional and functions only to specify or "lexicalize", as person for subjects and objects is marked on the verb, as discussed above. If an oblique noun appears, it appears between the subject and the object. For ditransitive verbs, the linear ordering of the two objects is based on an animacy hierarchy: (1st person > 2nd person > 3rd person animate > 3rd person inanimate). This animacy hierarchy also determines which object is marked for person on the verb. Deviations from the default word order are fairly common in discourse. Some attested examples are objects preceding subjects so as to be topicalized and subjects following verbs when they are lexicalized as an "afterthought" to the statement. Noun phrase Lexical demonstratives within Tiipai are typically used for spatial deixis, and they do not inflect for plurality. Three lexical demonstratives are