Alienable and Inalienable Possession in Dholuo

Abstract

In his book A Grammar of Kenya Luo (Dholuo) (1993) Tucker explores the different types of genitives he found in the language. He attempts to differentiate between alienable and inalienable genitive constructions, basing his argument on the different forms of genitive head noun in Luo. However, after thorough investigation, it can be said that Luo does not have the semantic distinction of alienable and inalienable genitives. It does have two different forms of genitive construction but these have no difference semantically. The difference between Tucker's findings and those in this document may be due to recent language change, but this would need further investigation.