Summary Details
| Query: |
Unmarked Possessives
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| Author: | Joost Kremers | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Morphology
Syntax |
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| Summary: |
For Query: Linguist 12.1287
Hello all, A few weeks ago, I posted the following question on the list: There are apparently languages that do not mark possessives in any way. They simply juxtapose two nouns to express possession. So for example to express ''John's car'', they would say either ''car John'' or ''John car''. I am looking for references to any studies dealing with this phenomenon, either in specific languages or in general. I would also be very grateful if anyone could tell me about languages that use this structure, because so far I have only found a very few cases. There were too many reactions to respond to everyone in person. Therefore, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who sent me an e-mail with information. It turns out that juxtaposition is quite a common strategy to express possession. The following languages were mentioned by people: American Black English Ancient Egyptian Arabic Belait Breton Burmese (perhaps) (Modern Mandarin) Chinese (only with ''intimate possession'') Old French Hebrew Kammu (aka Khmu, Kmhmu etc.) Khmer Spoken Korean (possessive marker can be dropped) Malay Maltese Nzema (only with alienable possession) Seychellois Sranan Thai (possessive marker can be dropped) Tobati Vietnamese (possessive marker can be dropped) Welsh Yoruba many West-African languages most Australian languages South America: Epena Pedee, Ndyuka ... Africa: Koyra Chiini Songay, Boko ... Asia: East Cham, Minangkabau ... Oceania: Amele, Maung ... For a number of these languages I received examples. I decided not to add them to this message, since it is becoming rather long already. Anyone interested can send me an e-mail. Even though I have not had the time to do some further research yet, several interesting questions have already turned up: a) in many languages, the unmarked possessive co-exists toghether with a possessive marker. Sometimes the use of the possessive marker is optional. (E.g., Thai, Spoken Korean, Vietnamese.) However, Dick Watson Other languages with variation between a possessive marker and juxtaposition show a functional difference: the choice between the possessive marker and juxtaposition depends on alienability. (E.g., Nzema, and I assume Chinese, although the two respondents called it ''intimate possession''.) b) At least in Arabic, Hebrew and Welsh, the possessed noun cannot take an article, whereas the possessor can. For most of the languages that were mentioned I have no idea whether or not they have articles, and if so, to what extent they can be used with the unmarked possessive construction. I have the impression that structures such as ''D-N D-N'' (i.e., juxtaposition with *both* nouns having a determiner) do not occur, but it would be interesting to either confirm or refute this claim. c) Chris Johnson A: Whose dog dug up my vegetable garden? B: John's./It was John's. The particle -'s marks ''John'' as a possessor, so that the hearer knows it is John's _dog_ that dug up the vegetable garden, not John himself. This and similar uses of possessives are probably not possible in languages that do not mark the possessor (even if they do mark the possessed). To this I can add two remarks: according to some, the -'s in ''it is John's'' and the -'s in ''John's car'' are not the same element. They apparently have different historical origins, and their pronominal versions are distinct (''it is mine'' vs. ''my car''). Furthermore, languages that do mark the possessor do not always use the possessor as a free-standing argument, witness the ungrammaticality of *''ce livre est de Jean'' and *''this book is of John''. Similarly, Classical Arabic, which has overt case markings, cannot use a genitive marked noun in this fashion. Bibliography >From some people, I received references to books and articles that may be of interest. I give the full list below. Also, Yura Lander Alexiadou, Artemis (2000) On the structure of alienable and inalienable possessors. Paper presented at the Antwerp International Conference on the syntax and the pragma-semantics of noun phrases: Form NP to DP, University of Antwerp, February 2000. Chappell, Hilary and William McGregor, eds. (1996) The grammar of inalienability: A typological perspective on body part terms and the part-whole relation. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Dixon, R.M.W (1980) The Languages of Australia. CUP: Cambridge. p293. (for examples from Australian languages) Dobrovie-Sorin, Carmen (2000) Spec, DP and (In)definitenes Spread: from Romanian Genitives to Hebrew Construct State Nominals. In: Motapanyane, V. (ed.) Comparative Studies in Romanian Syntax. Holland Academic Graphics Mark Donohue, Tobati. (forthcoming) In John Lynch, Malcolm Ross & Terry Crowley, The Oceanic Languages. London: Curzon Press. (for examples from Tobati) Duffield, Nigel (1992) Irish Construct State Nominals and the Radical Pro-Drop Phenomeneon. Proceedings of North-East Linguistic Society (NELS 23), GLSA Amherst. (The person who sent me this reference does not know if and where the final version has been published.) Fabri, Ray (1993) Kongruenz und die Grammatik des Maltesischen. T?bingen: Niemeyer. (Ch. 5) Fabri, Ray (1996) The Construct State and the Pseudo-Construct State in Maltese. Rivista di LinguisticaI, 8.1, 229 - 244. Heine, Bernd.(1997) Possession: cognitive sources, forces and grammaticalization. Cambridge UP. Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria (1996), Possessive noun phrases in Maltese: alienability, iconicity, and grammaticalisation. Rivista di Linguistica 8.1, 245 - 274. Ortmann, Albert (1994) Possessorkongruenz. Eine Fallstudie zum Verh?ltnis von Morphologie, Syntax und Semantik. Magisterarbeit, HHU D?sseldorf Seiler, Hansjakob (1983) Possession as an Operational Domain of Language. T?bingen: Narr Tsujioka, Takae. (2001) The syntax of possession in Japanese. Doctoral dissertation. Georgetown University. Welmers, William (1963) Associative a and ka in Niger-Congo. Language 39:432-447. (for data on West-African languages) - Joost Kremers, M.A. University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands Department of Languages and Cultures of the Middle-East PO Box 9103 6500 HD Nijmegen tel: + 32 24 3612996 fax: + 32 24 3611972 http://joostkremers.nijmegennet.nl |
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| LL Issue: | 12.1577 | |
| Date Posted: | 15-Jun-2001 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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