Concerning the Ligature in Bare’e and Some Related Languages

The element nu—sometimes reduced to a nasal m, n, ng, etc.—is often inserted between the two elements of a compound in Pamona (Bare’e). Adriani relates this nu to anu ‘thing,’ a form which in various languages also serves as a formative in independent possessive pronouns (‘mine,’ ‘yours,’ etc.), as an indefinite pronoun, as a relative pronoun, and as an interrogative pronoun. According to the author, nu also bears relationships to the so-called ligazones of Philippine languages, and even to the nasal coda of the Malayo-Polynesian transitive verb prefix. The element nu (or one of the nasal allomorphs) is usual in most Bare’e compounds; compounds without nu reflect an older stage of the language.