Possession: Cognitive Sources, Forces, and Grammaticalization
Abstract
In this new work, Bernd Heine claims that the structure of grammatical categories is predictable to a large extent once we know the range of possible cognitive structures from which they are derived. The author uses as his example the structure of predicative possession, and shows how most of the possessive constructions to be found in the world's languages can be traced back to a small set of basic conceptual patterns. Heine identifies these patterns, and using grammaticalization theory he describes how each affects the word order and morphosyntax of the resulting possessive construction. He argues that grammaticalization theory explains much of the observable typological diversity which characterizes 'have'-constructions in the world's languages. Illustrated by a wealth of examples, this is an original and important statement from a leading linguist.
... Many of the world's languages grammaticalize a distinction between inalienable and alienable possession. Inalienable possession is defined as an inherited, inseparable, permanent semantic relationship between two nominals, the possessee and the possessor, while alienable possession is a an acquired, separable, changing relationship between the possessee and the possessor (see Nichols 1988Nichols , 1992Heine 1997;Alexiadou 2003). Such a dichotomy does not exist in Standard Arabic (henceforth SA) in which possession is expressed by simple juxtaposition of the possessee and the possessor nominals, a structure known as the Semitic construct state (see Benmamoun and Choueiri 2013). ...
... This periphrastic construction is not always used alternatively with the construct state in MA since its usage is restricted to particular possessive relations, namely alienable possession, while it is incompatible with inalienably possessed nouns. Inalienable possession is defined as an unchanging, inherent, and/or permanent semantic relationship between two nominals, the possessee and the possessor, while alienable possession is a changing, acquired, context-dependent relationship between the possessee and the possessor (see Nichols 1988Nichols , 1992Heine 1997;Alexiadou 2003, among others cited in this paper). The alienability split is grammaticalized in many of the world's languages, like for example, Tauya (MacDonald 1990), Tigrinya (Gebregziabher 2012), Blackfoot (Ritter and Rosen 2014), and Mi'gmaq (McClay 2012), among many others (see Chapell and McGregor 1989). ...
... While no evidence of inalienable/alienable distinction appears in Standard Arabic, the periphrastic possessive construction that has developed in MA clearly encodes the alienability split. 4 Cross-linguistically, kinship and body parts terms are prototypical members of the class of inalienably possessed nouns in languages that display distinct grammatical markings for inalienable vs. alienable possession (see Nichols 1992, Heine 1997, Alexiadou 2003, among many others). These two classes of nouns appear in construct state structures but are incompatible with the periphrastic possessive construction in MA, thus (5b) and (6b) are ungrammatical. ...
Many of the world's languages grammaticalize a distinction between alienable and inalienable possession. Inalienable possession is defined as an unchanging, permanent semantic relationship between two nominals, the possessee and the possessor while alienable possession is a changing, context-dependent relationship between the possessee and the possessor (Heine 1997 and Alexiadu 2003). Such a dichotomy of acquired vs. inherited possession (as identified by Alexiadou 2003) does not exist in Standard Arabic in which possession is expressed by simple juxtaposition of the possessee and the possessor nominals, a structure known as the Semitic construct state (Benmamoun & Choueiri 2013). However, in Makkan Arabic (MA) an alternative possessive construction has emerged (besides the construct state) in which possession is expressed by using the morpheme ħaɡ between the possessee and the possessor. This morpheme might be followed by a possessor NP as in (1a) or take an enclitic possessive pronoun as in (1b-c) and it agrees with the possessed NP in gender as in (1c).
(1) a. (al)-kita:b ħaɡ Sami b. (al)-kita:b ħaɡɡ-i c. al-waraɡ-a ħaɡɡ-at-i
DEF-book POSS Sami. DEF-book POSS-1SG DEF-paper-F POSS-F-1SG
'Sami's book' 'my book' 'my paper'
Cross-linguistically, kinship and body parts terms are prototypical members of the class of inalienably possessed nouns in languages that display distinct grammatical markings for in/alienable possession (Nichols 1992, Heine 1997, and Alexiadu 2003). These two noun classes are incompatible with the emergent periphrastic possessive construction in MA, as indicated by the ungrammaticality of (2a) and (2b). Thus, I assume that the emergent possessive construction in MA is specific to alienable possession and that it is the outcome of the grammaticalization of the inalienable/alienable split in this variety of Arabic.
(2) a. *ʕam ħaɡɡ-i b. *Ra:s ħaɡɡ-i
uncle POSS-1SG head POSS-1SG
(Intended) 'my uncle' (Intended) 'my head'
In this paper I argue that the possessive marker ħaɡ is a functional morpheme that has been grammaticalized from the noun ħaɡ 'right'. As a noun, ħaɡ 'right' can (a) be pluralized: ħuɡu:ɡ 'rights' and (b) take the definite article: al-ħaɡ 'the right'. However, the grammaticalized functional possessive morpheme, ħaɡ lost these properties, so it is incompatible with the definite article (3a) and cannot be pluralized (3b). Nonetheless, grammaticalization does involve gains (Hopper & Traugot, 2003), ħaɡ as a possessive morpheme inflects for gender as in (1c), a property which does not apply to the lexical source, the noun ħaɡ.
(3) a. *(al)-kita:b al-ħaɡ Sami b. *al-kutub huɡu:ɡ Sami
DEF-book DEF-POSS Sami DEF -books POSS.PL Sami
(Intended) 'Sami's book' (Intended) 'Sami's books'
In the recent study, I show that the possessive morpheme ħaɡ conforms to Hopper's (1991) five principles of Grammaticalization, namely (1) layering, (2) divergence, (3) specialization, (4) persistence, and (5) decategorialization. Moreover, the choice of noun ħaɡ to be grammaticalized as a possessive marker is not arbitrary but complies with the principle of specialization on the basis of textual frequency and semantic generalizations (Hopper 2003). This cline of grammaticalization in MA is consistent with the insights of grammaticalization as a cyclical process (Hopper and Traugott 2003), and, interestingly, it is in line with a similar cline of grammaticalization in Maltese and Egyptian Arabic (Stolz 2011 and Sultan 2007).
... When it comes to the attributive possession, we can further categorize it into alienable and inalienable possession, along with different genitives. For example, Bernd Heine (1997a) mentioned that items that cannot be separated from their owners are inalienable, such as kinship roles (e.g., father, sister), body parts (e.g., eyes, legs), physical and mental states (e.g., illness, fear), and so forth. Inalienable possession, however, is defined differently depending on "culture-specific conventions"; some languages take concepts like neighbor, house, bed, fire, clothes, or spear as the inalienable category, while in other languages they do not (pp. ...
... Another way of classifying possessive constructions is based on the semantic properties of possessees. Heine (1997a) proposed seven different types of posses-sive notions, which serve as a reference for my data elicitation of have-possessive constructions in Malwai Punjabi. Details can be seen in the theoretical framework section. ...
... The significance of studying predicative possessive constructions in Malwai Punjabi is also summarized. Heine (1997a) and Stassen (2009) provided the most comprehensive and comparative accounts of the typology of predicative possession in the world's languages. The study of predicative possession has been well documented in many specific language families, such as Sino-Tibetan language groups (e.g., Hilary Chappell & Creissels 2019), Slavic language groups (e.g., Jasmina Grković-Major 2011), Circum-Baltic languages (e.g., Lidia Federica Mazzitelli 2017), Iranian languages (e.g., Masoud Mohammadirad 2020), Arabic languages (e.g., Creissels 2022), Permic languages (e.g., Nikolett F. Gulyás 2020), Khoisan languages (e.g., Heine 2001), and Oceanic languages (e.g., Stacy Fang-ching Teng 2014). ...
The study aims to examine the syntactic and semantic behaviors of predicative possession (i.e., have-possessive constructions) in Malwai Punjabi, an underdocumented dialect within the Indo-Aryan language family. Data were collected from longitudinal online interviews with native speakers as consultants, with audio recordings for transcribed target sentences. The results revealed that all the alienable possession, either permanent/temporary or abstract/concrete, could be marked by the postposition koḷ 'near/with' , whereas inalienable possession, such as whole-part relation and kinship, could not be encoded using koḷ. The prototypicality model and schema-based metaphors explained why koḷ was widely used to express alienable possession in Malwai Punjabi. The analysis of companion and proximity schemata also justified the extended semantics of predicative possession, suggesting a metaphorical mapping of accompaniment and location onto possession. From a typological angle, the case study can not only provide further evidence for the existence of split possession but also contribute to a cognitive understanding of predicative possession in relation to other languages.
... book I contend that this difference between inalienable and alienable possession for gender assignment is not coincidental. Work on possession has indicated that inalienable possession involves a 'tighter structural bond between possessee and possessor' (Nichols 1992:117; see also Heine 1997:172, Myler 2016, whereas alienable possession is often expressed in more morphosyntactically complex ways. This difference is visible in the Teop examples in 4, where features of the possessor are marked directly on the noun for inalienable possession (a), but require an additional preposition for alienable possession (b). ...
... Languages are known to distinguish often between two types of possession, commonly labeled inalienable and alienable possession. Nouns that can be inalienably possessed (henceforth ipossessed) typically belong to a closed class within a language (Heine 1997:172) and crosslinguistically are characterized by a small set of semantic categories (Heine 1997:10, 18, Myler 2016. Inalienable possession (ipossession) involves a 'tighter structural bond between possessee and possessor' (Nichols 1992:117; see also Heine 1997:172, Myler 2016, whereas alienable possession (henceforth apossession) is often expressed in more morphosyntactically complex ways. ...
... Nouns that can be inalienably possessed (henceforth ipossessed) typically belong to a closed class within a language (Heine 1997:172) and crosslinguistically are characterized by a small set of semantic categories (Heine 1997:10, 18, Myler 2016. Inalienable possession (ipossession) involves a 'tighter structural bond between possessee and possessor' (Nichols 1992:117; see also Heine 1997:172, Myler 2016, whereas alienable possession (henceforth apossession) is often expressed in more morphosyntactically complex ways. Myler (2016) illustrates the basic contrast with an example from a Kampan language (Arawak) spoken in South America, whose alienably possessed (apossessed) nouns are suffixed with an additional marker, glossed in 11 as poss. ...
The grammatical gender of a noun can be sensitive to a number of different factors, including the noun’s lexical semantics, nominalizing morphology, or arbitrary requirements imposed by particular roots (e.g. Corbett 1991, Kramer 2020), though the limits on possible factors are not currently understood, with some work proposing that a noun’s gender can even be valued ‘at a distance’ via agreement with other nominals. The current study explores the understudied phenomenon of gender-possession interactions (Evans 1994), investigating whether being possessed, or being possessable, can have an impact on which gender a noun is assigned. Evidence is provided from four unrelated languages supporting the existence of such interactions. Strikingly, however, these interactions are restricted to inalienable possession; no such interactions have been identified for alienable possession. I propose that this falls out from a general gender locality hypothesis (GLH), which restricts the domain of gender assignment within a phrase n P. The GLH captures the gender asymmetry between ‘local’, inalienable possessors introduced within n P and ‘nonlocal’, alienable possessors introduced outside of n P, for example, in a phrase PossP (Alexiadou 2003, Myler 2016). The GLH also makes further predictions for other features with respect to what may or may not factor into gender assignment, severely restricting or outright prohibiting gender-assignment effects from number, definiteness, and case. Broadly, the work expands our understanding of which types of elements can be relevant to gender assignment and sheds light on underexplored gender-, possession-, and agreement-related phenomena.
... Possessive predication expresses an asymmetric and usually unidirectional relation of two entities, the possessor and the possessee, whereby the possessee belongs to the possessor. It is fair enough to say that this definition is rather vague, but Heine (1997: Chapter 1), Stassen (2009: 10-25) and Koch (2012: 537-538) have shown that a more concrete definition is nearly impossible when aiming to account for all types of possessive relationships. Similarly to existential and locative predications, possessive predications can be perspectivised starting from the possessor or from the possessee. ...
... As shown by Laakso & Wagner-Nagy (2022), Uralic languages prototypically belong to group (II), Kamas being no exception (see below), whereby instances pointing to type (III) also occur in natural discourse. Heine (1997) and Stassen (2009) showed in much detail that possessive clauses often share structural properties with existential clauses, which is easily understandable given their similar perspectivisation patterns. In the case of structural ambiguity, it is often animacy that distinguishes the two clause types: Whereas the ground in existential predication is usually inanimate, the possessor in possessive predication is prototypically animate (Clark 1978: 118-119;Heine 1997: 136-138). ...
... Whereas Kamas realises the possessor as a mostly genitive-marked modifier of the possessee noun phrase, in Selkup, the possessor is locative-marked -either via case-marking or via a locative postposition -or unmarked (Wagner-Nagy 2020: 217-220, 224). From a typological point of view, Kamas thus adheres to the genitive schema in Heine's (1997) terminology, and Selkup to the location and topic schema, respectively. For deviations in Reactivated Kamas, see the discussion and Examples (21) and (22) above. ...
This paper describes and analyses existential, locative and possessive predications in Kamas. Starting from a functional-semantic perspective, we show that the three types of predications share many features, but they also exhibit some important differences. Given that two layers of Kamas can be distinguished, we demonstrate that the reactivated Kamas of the last speaker, Klavdiya Plotnikova, exhibits some peculiarities which can be explained partly by Russian influence. The most important result of the study is that the boundaries between the three predication types are rather fluid in Kamas, whereas the distinction between affirmative and negative clauses is morphosyntactically unambiguously manifested. This polarity split, given that it is seldom recognised in the general literature, may provide important implications for linguistic typology and theory.
... It is well known that grammaticalization typically involves linguistic changes at any of the morphological, semantic, and syntactic levels (see, for example, Traugott 1995; Heine andKuteva 2002, 2007;Hopper and Traugott 2003;Lehmann 2004). Now, if we examine the linguistic properties of ʤaaj, we will indeed see that this marker has undergone grammaticalization. ...
... Instead, the grammaticalized marker ʤaaj, syntactically, serves three grammatical functions: volitional, aspectual, and directive, as was discussed in Section 2 above. This is a natural outcome in the course of grammaticalization (e.g., see Heine 1997, van Gelderen 2004, since ʤaaj has ...
This paper reports on the syntactic and semantic properties of grammaticalized uses of the motion active participle ʤaaj ‘coming’ in Rural Jordanian Arabic (RJA). We show that ʤaaj has undergone grammaticalization, resulting in the emergence of three markers with distinct semantics and syntactic behaviors. In particular, we show that ʤaaj has three functions in RJA: (i) a volitional act marker, signifying a purposive or deliberate action, (ii) a marker of inceptive aspect, indicating the initiation of an action, and (iii) a directive mood marker, encoding imperative mood. From a syntactic perspective, we argue that the three markers occupy distinct functional head positions in the clause in line with Cinque, Guglielmo. (2006). Restructuring and functional heads: The cartography of syntactic structures , Vol. 4. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The volitional and inceptive ʤaaj respectively head their own functional projections, Volition Phrase and Aspect inceptive Phrase, both located below Tense Phrase. On the other hand, the directive ʤaaj heads an imperative Mood Phrase above Tense Phrase. We support this division by showing that the first two makers exhibit full agreement in phi-features with the thematic subject, whereas the latter does not agree with the subject at all due to its high position above Tense Phrase. The findings of this paper align with the crosslinguistic observation that motion verbs like come can be grammaticalized into varying functional elements (Bybee, Joan L., Revere Perkins & William Pagliuca. 1994. The evolution of grammar: Tense, aspect and modality in the languages of the world . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Dragomirescu, Adina & Alexandru Nicolae. 2014. The multiple grammaticalization of Romanian veni ‘come’. Focusing on the passive construction. In Maud Devos & Jenneke van der Wal (eds.), Come and go off the beaten grammaticalization path , 69–100. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter; Heine, Bernd & Tania Kuteva. 2002. World lexicon of grammaticalization . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Kuteva, Tania, et al. 2019. World lexicon of grammaticalization , 2nd edn., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lumien van Klinken, Catherine. 1999. A grammar of the Fehan dialect of Tetun . Canberra: Pacific Linguistics).
... The intriguing relations between 'be' and 'have' were observed by Locker (1954) and Benveniste (1960), and there was some philosophy-inspired work on the verb 'be' in different languages in the 1960s (e.g., Verhaar (ed.) 1967Verhaar (ed.) -1972, but sustained and systematic work on clause constructions of this type began only with Clark (1978) and Higgins (1973) (with Lyons 1967 as an important precursor). In earlier times, there was a lot of interest in the etymology of copulas, and also in copulaless 'nominal clauses' (e.g., Meillet 1906) (also called 'equational clause'; Sebeok 1943), but an uninterrupted tradition of cross-linguistic work only started with Hengeveld (1992), Heine (1997) and Stassen (1997). ...
... Predpossessive constructions are famous for being expressed by fairly different strategies in different languages (e.g., Heine 1997). In (23)-(25), I illustrate three of the best-known strategy types, using terminology from Creissels (2020). ...
There are about a dozen well‐recognised types of nonverbal clause constructions, but the terminology by which these subtypes are known varies widely. This paper gives an overview of the major types and defines each term carefully, from the perspective of general syntax. For a number of well‐established concepts that have no corresponding well‐established term, I propose novel terms. There are four major predicational types (classificational, attributional, predlocative and appertentive), and four major nonpredicational types (equational, existential, predpossessive and hyparctic).
... El posesivo tónico tiene su significado fuente ([+posesIón, +persona]) en el sintagma nominal. Si bien, en algunos contextos, estos valores semánticos se hallan en un continuo donde uno de los contenidos semánticos puede ser percibido como más abstracto (Heine, 1997;RAE y ASALE, 2009: 18.5l;Huerta Flores, 2017: 259-260), la interpretación posesiva en el sintagma nominal es, en términos generales, probabilísticamente muy plausible (por ejemplo, la casa mía, el coche tuyo, etc.). En esta fase, los posesivos átonos ya se usan con locuciones locativas (por ejemplo, a su lado, so aderredor, etc.; cfr. ...
... abierta acerca de 4 En cuanto a la abstracción semántica del posesivo tónico, cabe considerar, como se mencionó ya en § 1, que, en realidad, los pronombres posesivos y las construcciones posesivas de diversas lenguas del mundo se caracterizan por ser semánticamente polifacéticos; en efecto, no solamente en español sino en otras muchas lenguas (cfr.Heine, 1997), la abstracción 'posesiva' de los posesivos está presente hasta cierto punto, incluso en usos canónicos encontrados en el sintagma nominal: a modo de ilustración, se encuentra en sus fotos -las fotos de él -las fotos suyas que todos pueden expresar tanto 'las fotos que posee' como 'las fotos que ha sacado' o 'las fotos en que aparece'(R ...
Este estudio indaga en la gramaticalización de los posesivos tónicos cuyo uso se documenta desde hace algo más de un siglo en el sintagma adverbial (por ejemplo, delante mío) y en el sintagma verbal (por ejemplo, habla mal tuyo). Se arroja luz sobre la difusión del posesivo tónico “no posesivo” de un ámbito lingüístico a otro, cómo los cambios observados se relacionan entre sí, y qué condiciones y mecanismos posibilitan la extensión del posesivo tónico en su función argumental de persona. Los hallazgos ponen de manifiesto cómo la actualización del cambio avanza sigilosamente a través de extensiones analógicas sucesivas.
... Na verdade, a afinidade entre construções possessivas, existenciais e locativas tem sido bastante evidente nas pesquisas realizadas (Perniss;Zeshan, 2008). Heine (1997) identifica a construção existencial como um dos numerosos esquemas de eventos ou domínios de origem dos quais derivam as construções possessivas. Especificamente, os esquemas Objetivo, Genitivo e Tópico são três tipos de construções que dependem da noção de existência para expressar posse. ...
... Genitive schema: X's Y exists c. Topic schema: As for X, Y exists (Heine, 1997, p. 10) A afinidade empírica e conceitual entre construções existenciais e possessivas pode, portanto, ser parcialmente explicada pelo fato de que a existência é um dos domínios fonte da posse (Heine, 1997). ...
... Its components are related through 'inheritance hierarchies', containing more and less general patterns. 9 'Event schemas', according to Heine (1997aHeine ( , 1997b, are a set of basic structural templates available to speakers for the expression of concepts related mainly to action, location, accompaniment and existence, which can also be extended to more abstract concepts. 10 'Perspectivization', according to Partee and Borschev (2002, reflects 'figure-ground' relationships. ...
... Based on a variety of event schemas ('image schemas' in Langacker's terms) outlined by Heine (1997aHeine ( , 1997b, both POSS and DAT-EXP constructions in Hebrew are structured in a 'Goal schema' [Y EXISTS FOR/TO X]although, unlike Eastern European languages (i.e. Slavic, Baltic and Finno-Ugric), which use the 'Goal schema', in Hebrew, the POSS-or and Experiencer introduced by a dative preposition are not in clause-initial position. ...
This paper sheds light on the alignment of Existential, Possessive and Dative-Experiencer constructions prevalent in Modern Hebrew that involve ambiguity of syntactic relations. Data-driven and employing a strictly typological approach, the study argues that the constructions in question are fundamentally related, and that they do not conform to the typological criteria of ‘subject-oriented’ languages, like most Indo-European languages. It is suggested that an inner relationship holds between the constructions in question. As a non-subject oriented language that does not require entities of referential prominence to be encoded as subjects or topics, Hebrew tends to configure non-volitional events as happening, or coming from outside – existing with reference to the entity experiencing them or who is involved in them as Benefactive or Possessor.
... Though the focus of the present study is differential possession and not possession in a broader sense, we will nevertheless begin with a brief discussion delimiting the phenomenon of "possession", an issue at least as vexed in the literature as the definition of "alienable" and "inalienable." From a strictly semantic perspective, Heine (1997) delimits seven semantic possessive notions. From a much more syntactic perspective, Lehmann (1998) notes that the possession relationship is asymmetric (i.e., X poss Y ≠ Y poss X) while being essentially semantically empty, i.e., lacking lexical specification, and thus open to many semantic interpretations. ...
... We have exemplified our methodology with a phylogenetically diverse global sample of 120 languages and presented preliminary results on the semantic dimension of possession classes and how it correlates with noun valence and possessive strategies. Our semantic network analysis confirms the long-standing linguists' intuition of the universality of conceptually inalienable nouns (Heine 1997), but also confirms a universal core of non-possessible nouns as well (Bugaeva et al. 2021;Haspelmath 2017). Conceptually inalienable nouns include body parts and kinship terms at their core, but they commonly extend to include plant parts or parts in general, intimate property, such as tools and clothing, as well as relational nouns, such as owner, friend, or homeland. ...
In this work we are presenting a database structure to encode the phenomenon of differential possession across languages, considering noun possession classes and possessive constructions as independent but linked. We show how this structure can be used to study different dimensions of possession: semantics, noun valence, and possessive constructions. We present preliminary survey results from a global sample of 120 languages and show that there is a universal semantic core in both inalienable and non-possessible noun classes. Inalienables are centered on body parts and kinship. Non-possessibles are centered on animals, humans, and natural elements.
... We can take the Loc-Theme order as a necessary condition for an existential SLP construction to be reanalyzed as a possessive ILP construction, because a frame-setting locative PP must be base-generated in the CP domain. Heine (1997) argues that the notion of possession is a result of the metaphorical extension of the notion of location. Thus, it is not surprising to see a possessive construction diachronically developed from a locative construction. ...
Although Japanese is basically a nominative/accusative language, it also allows a variety of the dative subject constructions (DSC) of which the object is nominative. This construction is synchronically similar to the existential locative construction (ELC) in which the subject is nominative and the external locative modifier is dative-marked (cf. Kishimoto (1999)). On these two types of constructions, this article argues for the following two points: (i) the DSC was diachronically developed from the ELC; (ii) the development involves reanalysis of the locative PP in the ELC by the frame-setting locative PP in the DSC (cf. Maienborn (2001)) and the base-generation of the dative subject qua locative PP in the Spec of FinP (Rizzi (1996)), under the condition that the referent of the NP in the locative PP is interpreted as the possessor of the inherent property denoted by the predicate including the nominative NP. These proposals will be mainly justified by both synchronic pieces of evidence showing the base-generation of the locative PP of the DSC in a higher position than the nominative object and evidence from corpus data showing the increase of type and token frequencies of the DSC in the 1200 years of development of the Japanese language.
... However, this claim has been met with criticism. Basile and Ziegeler (2026) challenge this position, emphasizing that grammaticalization and constructionalization are distinct processes, particularly when viewed through the lens of cognitive-driven categories such as Heine's (1993Heine's ( , 1997) "Event Schemas". Their study on the diachronic development of the English semi-modal (had) better demonstrates that grammaticalization is not simply a restructuring of form-meaning pairs but a process that preserves and adapts existing semantic functions over time. ...
To appear in 2025, In Wen, Xu & Chris Sinha (eds.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Cognitive Linguistics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
... The classification of predicative possession constructions presented in this section is basically that proposed by Bertinetto, Ciucci & Creissels (2025). It differs from those previously proposed in the literature (in particular Heine (1996;1997) and Stassen (2009;2013)) in that it is a purely synchronic typology, consistently based on the morphosyntactic nature of the element responsible for the assignment of the semantic roles of possessor and possessee, in which formal similarities with other functional types of predicative constructions or etymological considerations play no role. The following six types of strategies are distinguished: 4 -the BIVALENT POSSESSIVE VERB STRATEGY, in which the roles of possessor and possessee are assigned by a bivalent verb to its arguments; -the PROPRIETIVE DERIVATION STRATEGY, in which a monovalent predicate (verb, adjective or noun) derived from a noun and glossable as '(be the) possessor of an N', assigns the role of possessor to its argument; -the FLAGGED-POSSESSEE STRATEGY, in which the role of possessor is assigned to an unflagged NP by a case-marked NP or adposition phrase in predicate role referring to the possessee; -the FLAGGED-POSSESSOR STRATEGY, in which the role of possessee is assigned to an unflagged NP by a case-marked NP or adposition phrase in predicate role referring to the possessor; -the MODIFIED-POSSESSEE strategy, in which the possessive interpretation of an existential clause follows from the adjunction of possessive indexes or of an adnominal possessive modifier to the argument of an existential predicator. ...
This article discusses the typology of predicative possession in Mande languages and compares the diversity observed in this domain across the Mande language family with that observed elsewhere in the world, in particular in the language families of West Africa that are in contact with the Mande family. Of the two major types of possessive clauses that have been identified in the world’s languages, possessive clauses that can be rendered literally as ‘In.the.sphere.of Possessor (is) Possessee’ are by far the most widespread type in the Mande language family, whereas possessive clauses projected by a transitive ‘have’ verb are quite marginal. Moreover, possessive clauses that can be rendered lirerally as ‘Possessor’s Possessee exists’, which constitute a rare type at world’s level, are common in South and East Mande.
... There are several works on body parts, more precisely on a nomenclature of terms referring to body parts (Brown, 1976), body parts and inalienability (Chappell & MacGregor, 1996), body parts and spatial localization or topological relations (Heine, 1997) or the notion of embodiment by body parts (Zouheir & Ning, 2011). The latter describes how emotions, sensations, states of mind or cultural characteristics are embodied in individual body parts. ...
El objetivo de este artículo es la caracterización de las manifestaciones lexicales y gramaticales de la corporalidad en las lenguas arawak. Consideramos que la noción de corporalidad en estas lenguas es central por la expresión de la persona y de la pacientividad; en otras palabras, un estado o calidad que tiene las características típicas del paciente. Este artículo empieza con una reflexión lexical sobre la cuestión de inalienabilidad de las partes del cuerpo, su nomenclatura –especialmente sobre la creación lexical– y la fuente de las emociones, como la palabra terena okóvo "guata" pero también "alma", o el wayuu -a’ain "corazón, alma" o el tariana -kale "corazón, mente, fuerza vital, alma, soplo". Estos ejemplos muestran que el cuerpo es el centro de sensaciones físicas, fisiológicas y hasta psicológicas. Las evidencias de esta afirmación aparecen a través de construcciones específicas para verbos estativos, como la oposición entre marcado del sujeto y marcado del objeto, o la existencia del marcado diferencial del sujeto. Estas diferentes construcciones permiten al hablante expresar especificaciones y sutilidades sobre las sensaciones ya mencionadas.
... In both the typological and formal semantic literature, a division is often drawn between nouns that are inalienably possessed such as body parts and kinship terms, so-called relational nouns, and nouns that are alienably possessed such as objects with owners, so-called sortal nouns (for typological descriptions see Ultan 1978;Seiler 1983;Nichols 1988Nichols , 1992Heine 1997;Nichols & Bickel 2013, for formal semantic descriptions see Barker 1995Barker , 2011Löbner 2011, for a general overview of both strands of literature see Myler 2016;Karvovskaya 2018). Within the syntactic literature, there is also a history of claims to the effect that the semantic difference between relational and sortal nouns is reflected by a structural difference: inalienable possessors are introduced lower in the noun phrase and are syntactically closer to the possessee than alienable possessors (Español Echevarría 1997;Alexiadou 2003;Myler 2016). ...
In both the typological literature and literature on formal syntax and semantics, a division is drawn between nouns that are inalienably possessed such as body parts and kinship terms and nouns that are alienably possessed such as owned materials. In this paper I re-examine data from Spanish and Mayan languages and propose an analysis of it that emphasizes two important points regarding the roots and structures associated with inalienable and alienable possession. I first make the novel observation that various types of external possession in Spanish provide clear support for the idea that inalienable possession is structurally less complex than alienable possession: inalienable possessive relations are introduced within a complex n head that consists of a root and nominalizing head. I then explore attributive possession in Mayan languages and highlight data that leads to conflicting conclusions about where, precisely, inalienable relations such as part-of and kin-of are encoded: on n heads or on roots. I outline avenues for future research with the Mayan language family that may help elucidate which of these two analyses may ultimately be correct.
... See Section 2.2. 7 Creissels notes that Heine's (1997) "companion schema" and Stassen's (2009) "with-possessive" and his "comitative-possessee" construction refer to possessive clauses glossable as "Possessor (is) with Possessee", and that possessive maʕa clauses belong to the same oblique-possessor type as the possessive ʕindaor li-clauses of Classical Arabic. In the original example, be is glossed "by", but this preposition also has instrumental and comitative uses, and as the author rightly observes in the section where he describes the uses of be (p. ...
The paper provides a novel motivation in favor of a complex and fine-grained syntax of spatial PPs in Arabic. It neatly fills a gap between the complex semantics of spatial expressions and their morphosyntax, which remains unexplained using wide spread cognitive approaches. We propose a fine-grained architecture of root nodes, categories, and features in the basic representations of Path/Place expressions, inspired by cartographic analyses of PPs, but based on a pP dual-projection model, separating the root/lexical part from the functional/categorial part, as in Distributed Morphology (=DM). In so doing, the paper challenges traditional analyses of PPs as projecting a uniform Path over Place structure (with no bifurcating domain separation). It also provides essential ingredients allowing the decomposition of Place and Path words or expressions, including COINCIDENCE, CONTAIN, CONTACT, etc., or syntactic projections such AxPs, DeixPs, DegPs, ScaleP, GoalPs, etc., which play important syntactico-semantic roles in the grammar. Our analysis successfully accounts for complexity of prepositions or spatial expressions, their morphosyntactic alternations, variation, and polysemy.
... Avhendeleg eigarskap viser på si side til eigarskapsrelasjonar som ikkje er ibuande på same måte, som til dømes relasjonen mellom ein person og ein bil eller mellom ein person og ei frittståande hand. Uavhendelege eigarskapsrelasjonar får ofte saerbehandling i grammatikken til ulike språk (sjå Chappell og McGregor 1996, Deal 2017, Guéron 1985, Heine 1997, Johannessen, Julien og Lødrup 2014, Lødrup 2009a, Payne og Barshi 1999. I den klassiske artikkelen til Lévy-Bruhl (1916) Ragnhild Eik gjengir han eit døme frå melanesisk 3 der stammen kat 'lever' får ulik possessivmarkering avhengig av om relasjonen er avhendeleg eller uavhendeleg. ...
Possessive objekt, som han i ho trakka han på foten, er spesielle av to grunnar: dei kjem ofte i tillegg til verbets konvensjonelle argumentstruktur (trakke er eit typisk intransitivt verb, men tar possessivt objekt), og dei blir tolka som eigar av eit anna nomen i setninga (her foten). I norsk er temaet behandla grundigast av Lødrup (2009 b, 2019), som analyserer possessive objekt som direkte objekt og behandlar såkalla uavhendelege kroppsdelsnomen som ein nomenklasse med eigne grammatiske possessiveigenskapar. Denne artikkelen presenterer eit alternativ til analysen av possessivt-objekt-setningar, basert på eksoskeletal teori og særleg Åfarli (2007). Det blir argumentert for at det possessive objektet er eit indirekte objekt, og at både verb og kroppsdelsnomen er radikalt underspesifiserte for grammatisk informasjon som argumentstruktur og possessiveigenskapar. Artikkelen viser slik korleis ei eksoskeletal tilnærming kan gi nye perspektiv på possessive objekt og uavhendeleg eigarskap.
... It seems that there is a thematic difference between the two frames after all, which is obscured when the goal argument is human. This line of reasoning maintains that human goals reside in a grey area between locations and possessors-a grey area that plays a role in the pervasive tendency for languages to express possession with the same morphosyntax as location; see Benveniste (1966); Freeze (1992); Kayne (1993); Heine (1997); Stassen (2009). On this view, (1a) and (1b) do not express the same thematic relations and accordingly do not share a base structure. ...
Many varieties of Arabic display a causative construction that adds a causer to the argument structure of the underlying verb. When this verb is transitive, the causative derivative is ditransitive. In the Arabic varieties, these ditransitive causative verbs display a double object alternation fully parallel to the alternation that change of possession verbs like give display. I claim that two current analyses of the double object alternation do not extend naturally to Arabic causative constructions. Rather, the parallels between causative and change of possession ditransitives in Arabic implicate an analysis of change of possession verbs in which the recipient argument (parallel to the external argument of the underlying verb in causative ditransitives) is base generated syntactically superordinate to the theme (parallel to the internal argument of the underlying verb in causative ditransitives). The unifying analysis I propose draws on certain elements of the ‘VP-shell’ analysis of Larson (1988) as well as the ‘neo-constructionist’ approach of Ramchand (2008; 2018) regarding the syntactic instantiation of argument structure. The Arabic variety I take as an exemplar of the Arabic causative construction is Syrian.
... In other words, there is a likelihood that new variants are intrinsically motivated within the language organization. This would explain, as well, why changes are not entirely arbitrary, and exhibit strong typological regularities (Heine, 1997;Heine and Kuteva, 2002), or why languages sharing a common ancestry tend to develop similar changes at different times (Van Peteghem, 2012). ...
Complex systems research has chiefly investigated language change from a social dynamics perspective, with undeniable success. However, there is more to language change than social diffusion, i.e., a one-off adoption of an innovative variant by language users. Language use indeed factors in, besides prevalence (the percentage of adopters of the form in the community), lexical diversity (the number of different lexical items a conventionalized pattern combines with), and entrenchment (the average rate at which speakers choose the form in suitable pragmatic environments). Changes in token frequency may reflect changes in any of these three variables. To sort them out, we defined proxies to factor entrenchment out of empirical measures of prevalence and lexical diversity. From a French corpus, we analyzed 25 schematic constructions, featuring an open slot that hosts a variety of fillers. We show that their rise of token frequency across a change episode is mostly explained by entrenchment; however, the magnitude of the change is uniquely explained by the final extent of its lexical diversity. Furthermore, the fillers obey a construction-specific Zipf-Mandelbrot organization, that robustly holds throughout the change episode. We also show that in some cases, the fillers arise simultaneously, hinting at the possibility that such a complex organization emerges all at once, highlighting the role of structural features in language change.
... Come detto, i verbi soggetti al processo di ausiliarizzazione sembrano appartenere ad un campo semantico delimitato, in quanto descrivono in origine proprietà, controllo, ricevimento o stati simili, e tendono ad ausiliarizzarsi proprio perché tali significati sono affini al significato di possesso: se il verbo è inteso come espressione di possesso, l'argomento esterno è reinterpretato come Locativo per motivi presumibilmente universali. Ne consegue che determinati verbi sono particolarmente esposti al "rischio" dell'ausiliarizzazione. 7 In altri termini, il ragionamento sopra suggerisce che l'ausiliarizzazione sia di natura universale, forse come il risultato di una generale tendenza alla metaforizzazione (Heine 1997), e per via della semantica "esistenziale" sottostante alle espressioni di possesso. Non è predicibile se un tale processo si avvii; tuttavia, se si verifica, le fasi del suo sviluppo risultano in parte prevedibili. ...
This article aims at discussing the premises for a unified account of auxiliarisation, here understood as aspecific subcase of grammaticalisation. The passage of Latin HABEO from a lexical verb to a tense-formingauxiliary is certainly one of the most well-studied innovations of Romance languages. Equally familiar are thecases of auxiliarisation of Latin TENEO, Germanic *habhen and *getan, as well as Scandinavian derivativesof Old Norse fà. Such processes follow a similar path, in the sense that they originally select a secondarypredication in the passive voice, which over time is reanalysed as active. At the same time, the governing verbis void of lexical content and turns into an auxiliary, while the implicit agent of the secondary predicate isreinterpreted as the surface subject of the construction. If a unified theory is to be attempted, such an approachshould capture why such a path of change is consistently observed and, moreover, why it seems to be a definingproperty of such auxiliarisation that the verbs involved originally describe possession, reception, or control.Furthermore, ideally the unified theory should account for why the semantic output of these processes variesover time: the earliest cases of auxiliarisation are precisely those involving HABEO/habhen, which give riseto the compound tenses in modern languages. Subsequent cases, however, such as the auxiliarisation ofTENEO/getan etc. do not lead to the formation of compound tenses, but rather to what could be defined ascompound aspects or, sometimes, compound causative constructions. This circumstance, too, requires aprincipled account.
... Overall, all the aforementioned linguistic changes of the multifunctional particle ʕaad point to the conclusion that it has undergone grammaticalization of some source, moving from an open-class item (presumably the verb) to three closed-class elements: utterance-oriented repetitive, evidential mood, and evaluative mood particles (e.g., see Gelderen 2004; Heine 1997). Having discussed the pragmatic functions of the particles at hand, we will now need to address their distributional properties and syntactic structures, to be undertaken in Section 3 below. ...
This paper investigates the linguistic functions of the syncretic particle ʕaad in Jordanian Arabic. It particularly examines the repetitive, evidential, and evaluative functions of ʕaad, and attempts to make some speculations on the source from which this particle could have been originated. Moreover, it explores the syntactic function of each ʕaad, arguing that one ʕaad is an utterance-oriented repetitive particle, while the other two are mood particles, with one expressing evidential mood but the other evaluative mood. It will also be shown that the three particles are syntactically functional heads encoding different grammatical and pragmatic meanings.
The previous two chapters dealt with attributive and locational relational clauses. In this chapter we deal with the third type of relational clause: possessive. As I will be using the term, possessive clauses express relationships of ‘having’ versus ‘lacking’ (simple-Carrier), or ‘coming to have’ versus ‘coming to lack’ (compound-Carrier) between the participant roles.
In a grammatical description of Uto-Aztecan languages, Langacker (1997) identifies various functions of *ka, ranging from the copulative verb ‘to be’, a stative marker, a tense-aspect affix, a participle, a subordinating marker, to a possessive morpheme. The purpose of this study is to explore the verbal functions of ka in three languages not mentioned by Langacker: Yaqui, O’dam, and Wixárika. Uses as a stative marker, participial, and subordinating marker are identified in all three languages. In Yaqui and Wixárika, it appears as a postural verb ‘sit’ and a verbal possession morpheme. In Wixárika, a locative morpheme ka is observed, a function not mentioned by Langacker. The most stable function is as a tense-aspect marker, although the values tend to vary between the languages. These initial observations lay the foundation for future comparative studies on ka, its allomorphs, and derived forms, as well as the potential grammaticalization paths.
It has been claimed that the Iranian dialects ancestral to Ossetic passed through a stage in which the Old Iranian case system had been reduced to a two‐way opposition of the type found in many other Middle and Modern Iranian languages. An opposing view holds that the extent of syncretism was more limited, and that Ossetic inherited at least four cases. Reexamination of the evidence demonstrates that although reflexes of up to five OIr. cases may be identified, pre‐Ossetic contrasted just two cases (direct vs. oblique) in lexical nouns and three in pronouns. Most of the secondary cases arose from postpositional phrases, as is crosslinguistically common, but other grammaticalisation paths have played a role, including a postposed pronoun and pattern copying of a lexically restricted denominal suffix. Contrary to widespread claims, although linguistic contacts surely characterised all stages of Ossetic, neither the shift from cumulative to separative exponence of case and number, nor reduction and subsequent expansion of the case system need be ascribed to the effects of nonnative language acquisition.
이 논문에서는 아주 거대한 주제를 논의 대상으로 하였다. 언어보편성 문제와 유형 비교의 과제가 그것이다. 그간의 과정을 단편적으로 소개하면서 앞으로 나아가는 데 나타나는 연구 방향을 제시하고자 한다. 언어보편성이라 하면 전통적으로 언어 범주와 규칙을 대체로 염두에 두어 생각했다. 예컨대 어휘범주로 단어가 명사나 동사 같은 품사로 나뉜다던가, 문장은 주어와 술어로 구성되고 이는 격이나 호응 혹은 어순규칙으로 나타난다는 식의 견해이다. 그러나 그간의 유형 비교로 이는 언어 특유의 현상이지 일반 언어 보편 현상이 아니라는 주장이 쏟아져 나왔다(Evans & Levinson 2009). 그리하여 언어보편성에 대한 의구심마저 일게 되었는데, 그러함에도 불구하고 언어보편성 개념이 필요하다는 생각도 없지 않다(Chomsky 1965, 1980, Comrie 1989, Jackendoff 2002). 그것은 유형 다양성 비교에서 필요한 기준의 문제와 직결된다(Haspelmath 2008, 2010). 또 다른 측면으로는 인지와 소통이라는 양대 언어 기능은 언어 보편 특질로 규정될 수 있기 때문이다.
이 논문에서는 유형 비교를 위한 기준을 설정할 때 필요 되는 언어 일반 이론에 언어 보편 원리에 대한 설명이 반드시 나타나기에 그 설명 중 언어보편성(Greenberg 1963, 1986, Seiler 1978, Croft 2001, 2003)과 관련지어 이해할 수 있는 부분을 눈여겨보려 한다. 구조주의 이후 생성문법, 기능문법(Dik 1997)이 있었고, 인지 담화문법(Givón 1979, Langacker 1987)이 연이어 나타났다. 최근에는 사용-기반 구성문법이 등장했는데(Bybee 1985, 2006, Goldberg 1995, 2003, Langacker 2000, Barlow & Kemmer 2000, Schmid 2015, Diessel 2017, 권명식 2023, §3.6) 이는 문법화 이론(Lehmann 1982, Heine et al. 1991)과 비교되면서 새로운 관심을 불러일으키고 있다. 이 두 일반 이론을 전통 개념(Lyons 1968, Matthews 1981)과 관련지어 생각해 보면 어떤 문제가 야기되는지, 그리고 앞으로 풀어나가야 할 과제가 무엇인지 서서히 나타나게 될 것이다. 전통적 유형 연구(Schlegel 1818, Humboldt 1836)의 출발점인 단어구조와 형태 유형론은 그 결점에도 불구하고 여전히 중요한 통찰을 제시하고 있다. 그러므로 §3에서는 이 접근이 문법화 이론과 사용-기반 구성문법 시각과 비교할 때 어떤 의미와 의의가 있는지 조망해 보고자 한다. 그러기 위해서는 먼저 §2에서 언어체계 구조와 담화 세계에 대한 사전 지식이 요구된다(Lehmann 2024). 언어 구성의 네트워크 시스템과 구성체라는 새로운 개념(Diessel 2019, 2023)과 함께 전통적 언어 운영의 핵심인 상징, 통합, 계열관계(Schmid 2020)를 여기에 관련지어 설명하고자 한다(§3.3).
언어변이와 변화는 현대 언어 연구의 중심 화두로 떠오르고 있는데 이에 대한 설명 개념으로 문법화와 어휘화 현상을 시스템 내부 변화로 이해하고 언어구조 밖 담화 세계와 발화 상황을 연결 짓는 일련의 현상을 ‘화용화’라는 개념으로 정리하고자 한다(§4.2). §5 사례 분석에서는 아프리카 언어들을 중심으로 유형 비교의 실제 즉 문법범주 생성과 진화 그리고 비교를 살펴보고 좀 더 높은 층위에서의 유형 비교 주제인 문법 관계(Bickell 2011, Witzlack-Makarevich 2011) 사례를 되돌아 보고자 한다. §6에서는 이제까지 논의한 사항을 문제점과 과제라는 측면에서 정리해 나가되, 구성체와 범주화, 규칙, 그리고 패턴이라는 용어를 중심으로 정리하고자 한다. 끝으로 §7에서는 결론과 함께 간단히 유형 비교 연구의 전망으로 마무리하고자 한다.
Many Philippine languages of the Austronesian family exhibit a three-case system: two reserved for marking core arguments and the third for marking non-core participants. This paper examines the Batanic subgroup, which differs from the typical Philippine configuration by distinguishing two separate non-core cases (oblique and locative), thus raising the question of how the single non-core category of other Philippine languages is more finely split in Batanic languages. Previous analyses of the Batanic non-core cases often reduce the oblique to merely marking indefiniteness but ascribe a wider range of functions to the locative in marking various peripheral arguments and adverbials. Using textual and usage-based data, this paper proposes a reevaluation of the non-core cases in Batanic and argues that: (1) the Batanic oblique should be conceptualized more like the typical Philippine oblique, as it marks both indefinite and definite participants excluded from the core for various syntactic reasons, and that (2) the functions of the locative are more specific, compact, and stem from its basic spatial meaning with an additional association with animacy. This analysis offers a typological perspective on possible ways that languages organize their non-core categories and provides further insight on what exactly the ‘non-core’ might consist of.
This paper examines experiencer subject causatives in Japanese, where the animate subject functions as an experiencer rather than an agent (e.g., Taro-ga kyoohuu- de boosi-o tob-asi-ta ’Taro’s cap got blown off on him due to the strong wind’). The paper is divided into two parts: formal and experimental. In the first part, adopting the functional head Affect (Bosse et al. 2012), I propose that the experiencer subject merges with the Spec of AffectP, which is positioned between the causing-event-introducing CauseP and the semantically contentless expletive VoiceP (i.e., CauseP < AffectP < expletive VoiceP). To account for the possessor–possessum relationship between the subject and object, I argue for a pragmatic analysis over potential syntactic alternatives. Additionally, I adopt the view that each lexical entry contains syntactic structures to explain lexical idiosyncrasies. My proposal comprehensively captures the key aspects of experiencer subject causatives. I further claim that the inanimate causer adjunct (e.g., kaze-de ’due to the wind’) adjoins to CauseP, positioned above VP, which introduces the theme (e.g., boosi-o ’his cap’). The second section reports on a sentence-processing experiment designed to distinguish between the proposed high-causer analysis and the alternative low-causer analysis, where the causer is located below the theme. The results reveal that the theme–causer order takes longer to process than the causer–theme order, lending support to the high-causer analysis. These findings provide insight into the long-standing issue regarding the syntactic position of inanimate causers.
There is a debate concerning the history of demonstratives. Are they primitive or grammaticalized elements in languages? Moreover, notwithstanding the relevance of demonstratives to NP, nominals are not regarded as a potential source of grammaticalized demonstratives. The present study, based on synchronic observations, argues that the proximal demonstratives ða ‘this’ and ʔulaaʔ ‘these’, which constitute the nucleus of the demonstrative system of Standard Arabic, are grammaticalized elements. It also offers a new grammaticalization pathway and a new source of demonstratives. Arabic proximal demonstratives evolve from possessive adjectives, which are themselves grammaticalized from nominals that mean ‘oneself’ and ‘companion’. The motive underpinning this pathway is that the lexical sources and the grammaticalized elements share the property of being egocentric. Concerning medial and distal demonstratives, two further stages of grammaticalization occur: (1) the phonological derivation of two medial demonstratives from their corresponding proximal demonstratives and (2) the phonological derivation of two distal demonstratives from their corresponding medial demonstratives. The extended grammaticalization pathway is as follows: nominals that mean ‘self’ and ‘companion’ > possessive adjectives > proximal demonstratives > medial > distal. This pathway implies that the source of demonstratives may comprise more than one lexical word; however, they are meaningfully related, and their grammaticalization pathway towards forming the demonstrative system of Standard Arabic applies uniformly.
This article confronts a multifunctional grammaticalized form in Mandarin, the preverbal morpheme yǒu (有). Since its appearance in the Chinese mainland around the 1990s, there has been controversy about whether it is an aspect marker or not. In response to this question, we conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate how native Mandarin speakers generally understand sentences with preverbal yǒu . The results not only show that preverbal yǒu can serve as a perfective viewpoint marker that makes the terminal boundary of an event semantically visible, but also provide evidence of its other function as an existential marker. The concrete function of preverbal yǒu (perfective or existential) depends on pragmatic inference based on the temporal properties of a given situation. With this observation, the paper resolves the controversy of which of these two functions actually applies to preverbal yǒu , and integrates this marker into the broader context of pragmatics-based multifunctionality as it is widely found in Sinitic and mainland Southeast Asian languages.
This paper discusses two different attributive possessive constructions in Pagu, a West Papuan language spoken in Halmahera. They can be categorized into double and single marking. Semantically, the former construction allows only human possessor, while the latter both non-human and human – with a restricted use for human on the core kinship relations only. The paper also discusses the definiteness of the possessor or possessee in each construction, which I argue result from the familiarity of both the possessor-possessee after being introduced in the discourse. It also allows either the possessor or the possessee to occur alone. The structure of each of the constructions will be presented in the Role and Reference Grammar’s Layered Structure of the Noun Phrase. It will help us see the functions of each possessive marker and the relation between the possessor and possessee.
Zusammenfassung
In dem vorliegenden Beitrag geht es um interaktional ausgehandelte Probleme rund um Possessivität in Dramentexten des Barock, der Aufklärung, des Sturm und Drang und der Klassik, genauer um den Gebrauch von Possessivpronomen und dessen Problematisierung durch die dramatis personae. Im Sinne der in dieser Untersuchung eingesetzten interaktionslinguistischen Herangehensweise liegt der Fokus dabei auf solchen Fällen, in denen die Interagierenden durch beobachtbare Aufzeigepraktiken Probleme erkennen lassen, die mit dem eigenen oder fremden Gebrauch von Possessivpronomen und dem damit ausgedrückten Verhältnis von Possessivität zu tun haben. Die Forschungshypothese ist, dass angesichts der Komplexität und Vielfalt possessiver Relationen sowie deren Relevanz für die Organisation menschlichen Zusammenlebens sich in den Dramen Stellen finden lassen, in denen solche Possessivrelationen interaktional problematisiert und entsprechend enaktiert werden.
This book discusses patterns of predication and their grammatical and semantic implications in a variety of African languages. It covers several prominent topics about predication in the languages, including locative predication, expressions of tense, aspect, and mood in relation to verbal complexes and verb serialisation, verb semantics, and nominalization of predicates. The chapters take inspiration from Felix Ameka’s approach to the study of language according to which the main task of a linguist is to collaborate with language users to understand communicative practices in different contexts and to uncover how these practices impact grammatical and semantic aspects of the language. Accordingly, the descriptions and analyses in this book serve to understand language variation in different ecologies, rather than to impose pre-established descriptive frames on less described languages. Together, the chapters in the book represent a bird’s eye view of predication strategies in various African languages and can therefore serve as readings for both introductory and advanced level courses on predication from a typological or comparative perspective.
This introductory paper presents the context and current challenges of Uralic syntactic studies. The brief summary of seven selected papers from the SOUL-4 conference published in the present issue is followed by an overview of six topics from the domain of Uralic syntax, namely: differential object marking; object agreement; impersonal constructions; the syntax of minor parts of speech; subordination and nonfinite predication; and possessive constructions. The aim of this overview is to show how intricate and, in some ways, how unfamiliar Uralic syntax looks from the Standard Average European perspective and how many issues still await further study. Kokkuvõte. Maria Ovsjannikova, Fedor Rozhanskiy: Uraali keelte süntaks: põhiomadused ja väljakutsed. Sissejuhatus. See sissejuhatav artikkel tutvustab Uurali süntaktiliste uuringute konteksti ja praeguseid väljakutseid. Esmalt tehakse lühikokkuvõte seitsmest SOUL-4 konverentsil ette kantud käesolevasse numbrisse valitud artiklist, millele järgneb ülevaade kuuest Uurali süntaksi valdkonna teemast, nimelt: diferentseeritud objekti markeerimine, objekti ühildumine, impersonaalsed konstruktsioonid, abisõnade süntaks, alistusseos ja mittefiniitne predikatsioon ning omastavate konstruktsioonide süntaks. Käesoleva ülevaate eesmärk on näidata, kui keeruline ja mitmes mõttes võõras on Uurali süntaks Euroopa keskmise standardi perspektiivist ning kui palju küsimusi ootab veel edasist uurimist.
In Russian, a specialized reflexive possessive pronoun must be used to indicate coreference between the possessor and the subject. However, it has been observed that in the first and second person plural, the reflexivization rule is often violated, and a non-reflexive possessive is used for subject coreference. Existing studies do not distinguish between singular formal and plural informal readings in the second person, assuming no difference between the two contexts. Furthermore, there is limited knowledge regarding the use of possessives in imperative contexts, as previous research has primarily focused on indicatives.
This article aims to investigate the use of possessive pronouns in both formal and informal imperative contexts by addressing two questions. First, how often is a non-reflexive possessive used to indicate coreference with the subject in Russian imperative sentences? Second, what combination of semantic and pragmatic factors allows its use? Apart from the semantic factors that are well documented in the existing literature (referentiality, animacy and alienability of the possessum), we will consider three pragmatic dimensions of politeness that have not been considered so far: form or address (informal ty / formal Vy), type of imperative (speaker- / hearer-oriented) and verbal aspect (perfective / imperfective).
The study analyzed the use of possessive pronouns in imperatives in the spoken subcorpus of the Russian National Corpus using generalized linear mixed models and random forests. The findings suggest that the choice of possessive is strongly influenced by the form of address (ty / Vy). When addressing the listener with the informal ty, a reflexive possessive is almost exclusively used. When addressing the listener with the formal Vy, both possessives are used equally often. The choice between them depends on several factors, including the referentiality and alienability of the possessum, the type of imperative, and the verbal aspect. The non-reflexive form is preferred when the possessum is referential, the imperative is speaker-oriented, and, to a lesser extent, when the possessum is alienable and the verb is in the perfective aspect. Additionally, some verbs such as ‘give’ and ‘show’ strongly prefer a non-reflexive possessive.
The results suggest that a reflexive possessive has become the default for subject coreference in Russian second person singular informal contexts. In formal contexts, however, the change is still ongoing, and a non-reflexive possessive is used to express the referential uniqueness of the possessum and to convey negative politeness towards the addressee.
p>The volume collects contributions that were presented at the PARTE workshop in Budapest in September 2022 or at the Partitive Online Talks, with the goal of investigating the universal and varying properties of partitive constructions and partitive elements. Since the expression of partitivity in Romance languages has been studied extensively, in this volume special attention is paid to other European languages, such as Germanic, Gaelic, Finno-Ugric and Slavic languages. With data from microvariation and variation that spans over vast geographical distances and involves various contact situations, this volume brings new insights into what is universal and what is particular in partitive constructions and elements in Europe.</p
p>The volume collects contributions that were presented at the PARTE workshop in Budapest in September 2022 or at the Partitive Online Talks, with the goal of investigating the universal and varying properties of partitive constructions and partitive elements. Since the expression of partitivity in Romance languages has been studied extensively, in this volume special attention is paid to other European languages, such as Germanic, Gaelic, Finno-Ugric and Slavic languages. With data from microvariation and variation that spans over vast geographical distances and involves various contact situations, this volume brings new insights into what is universal and what is particular in partitive constructions and elements in Europe.</p
This paper describes the development of the existential sign var ‘there’ in Turkish Sign Language from a synchronic point of view. The sign has been previously described as being restricted to clause-final predicate position and typically used for two main linguistic functions: (i) existential and (ii) possessive. However, abundant corpus evidence indicates that var can also be used for other linguistic functions in post-verbal position, which have not been reported in the literature before. Following Construction Grammar, this study presents a theoretical framework to investigate how the construction [verb + var ] arose and what its semantic motivation is, paying particular attention to the notion of possession. It is argued that this construction has three different functions: (i) habitual, (ii) evidential, and (iii) assumptive. According to this account, var originated as an existential marker and subsequently developed into a marker of possession, before evolving to encompass its other linguistic functions in three stages. Using Labov’s Apparent Time Hypothesis (Labov, William. 1963. The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19(3). 273–309), closer examination also revealed that a progressive difference exists between age groups. Younger TİD signers use the construction [verb + var ] more frequently, and as the age of the TİD signer decreases, the usage of this construction in the assumptive function increases considerably.
In this paper, we explore non-verbal predication structures in eight languages from two linguistic families in the South American Gran Chaco: Guaycuruan and Mataguayan. Our motivation for this comparative analysis arises from the linguistic diversity of the Chaco region, marked by a history of linguistic contact and borrowing. While non-verbal predication has received limited attention in descriptive grammars of Guaycuruan and Mataguayan languages, and some comparative work has been done, certain semantic types such as identity and inclusion were left unexplored. Our analysis takes a semantic approach to linguistic expressions, encompassing functional and semantic aspects within non-verbal predication. We categorize non-verbal predicates into three semantic groups: inclusion and identity predication (including certain color and dimension adjectival predicates in Guaycuruan languages Qom and Pilaga), locational (plain-locational and inverse-locational), and possessive. Notably, inverse-locational and possessive predication predominantly involve the use of existential constructions establishing a formal semantic connection among these three domains. The constructions employed to convey inclusion and identity predication include juxtaposition, inflected nouns, and the copula. Lastly, we briefly discuss shared structural features, reinforcing the notion that linguistic contact has led to the adoption of certain patterns across Guaycuruan and Mataguayan languages.
The present study contributes to the empirical basis of grammaticalization theory by presenting a grammaticalization profile of Zapotec, a language family of Mesoamerica. The discussion centers around co-grammaticalization of lexemes and constructions, polygrammaticalization, interdependence between syntactic and prosodic conditioning of grammaticalization, and mutual feedback between grammaticalization and morphosyntactic typology.
The present study investigates Possessive Constructions and domains of possession in Kalhori Kurdish (KK) from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective to reveal the arrangement of constituents and relationships between the head (possessee) and dependent (possessor). This qualitative descriptive-analytical study collected data by interviewing KK speakers in Iran. The results indicate that KK speakers employ both the B-construction ( hin-e ) and Be-construction ( ha ) at the clause level to denote predicative possession characterized by [−whole-part, −kinship] relationships and [+alienable] ownership. Additionally, KK speakers were found to utilize the H-construction (/dire/) at the clause level associated with [+whole-part, +kinship] relationships and [±alienable] ownership. KK speakers also employ possession splits in nominal/attributive possession by attaching the possessor, marked by the [+human] feature, to the possessee, marked by the [±human] feature, as an affix.
摘要
本研究通过梳理汉语中具有较高使用频率的“有”在共时和历时层面、口语和书面语中的使用情况，发现“有”可以跟多种语类范畴共现，构成新的句法成分，占据不同的句法层级，获得不同的语义或语用解读。在共时上，语料涉及普通话和六种典型方言中“有”的语义或语用解读和功能表现，在历时上比较了现代汉语和古代汉语中“有”的词汇多义性。本研究以“有”的词汇多义性为出发点，采用生成语法视角描绘了不同语义或语用解读的“有”的句法层级高低，展示了“有”的句法连续性，同时为汉语词汇语法化过程提供了语义和句法视角下的证据。
This paper describes the development of the existential sign VAR 'there' in Turkish Sign Language from a synchronic point of view. The sign has been previously described as being restricted to clause-final predicate position and typically used for two main linguistic functions: (i) existential and (ii) possessive. However, abundant corpus evidence indicates that VAR can also be used for other linguistic functions in post-verbal position, which have not been reported in the literature before. Following Construction Grammar, this study presents a theoretical framework to investigate how the construction [verb + VAR] arose and what its semantic motivation is, paying particular attention to the notion of possession. It is argued that this construction has three different functions: (i) habitual, (ii) evidential, and (iii) assumptive. According to this account, VAR originated as an existential marker and subsequently developed into a marker of possession, before evolving to encompass its other linguistic functions in three stages. Using Labov's (1963) Apparent Time Hypothesis, closer examination also revealed that a progressive difference exists between age groups. Younger TİD signers use the construction [verb + VAR] more frequently, and as the age of the TİD signer decreases, the usage of this construction in the assumptive function increases considerably.
This report details our semantic and syntactic analysis of verbs and argument structure constructions in English.
This paper aims to make a contribution to the study of the nature of syntactic categories by analysing a single element in a single language, namely the marker -lao in Yixing Chinese. Although this marker has previously been analysed as an adjectivaliser ( Hu and Perry 2018 ), we show that it has a much broader range of uses. We suggest that the bulk of cases can be captured in a unified way by supposing that the marker in question displays a type of possessive semantics (which we label possession-as-attribute ), which is defined by delineating a kind (in the sense of e.g. Carlson 1977 ; Chierchia 1998 ), with similar semantics being expressed by adjectival elements in languages such as English. It is observed, however, that this meaning can emerge in the absence of the marker -lao , and that -lao can, in a restricted set of cases, surface in the absence of this meaning, and we suggest that these facts are attributable to the diachronic development of the marker and can be captured synchronically by making use of late-insertion mechanisms for phonological and semantic features. We propose that the case of -lao provides a suggestive argument for a substance-free approach to syntactic features, whereby syntactic features are not inherently specified for interface interpretations. Other cross-linguistic implications of our analysis are noted, in particular for the representation of adjectives.
The study at hand deals with different structures applied for expressing locative and existential predication in Khanty and Mansi, analysing a comparably large amount of data from various databases. Apart from the “expected” and traditionally described pattern “figure (theme) + ground (location) + copula”, the paper also accounts for posture verbs and transitive habeo-verbs playing a role in the named functional domain. Additionally, it is shown that a significant number of relevant clauses are structurally ambiguous between a locative and an existential reading. Finally, the paper underlines that the Ob-Ugric languages show a clear polarity split in the expression of locative and existential predication since the observed variation mainly touches affirmative clauses. In contrast, negative clauses are, as a rule, formed with negative existential particles.
This paper deals with head-marked nominal possessors in Nganasan, i. e., constructions with the possessor in the Nominative and possessive markers on the possessee. It is shown that this construction is only used when the possessor is topical and the possessee is in focus. All other combinations of topic/focus and possessor/possessee with a nominal possessor use the standard dependent-marking construction: the possessor stands in the Genitive and the possessee is unmarked.
This contribution examines semantico-cognitive aspects of the spatio-temporal distance between the noun and other constituents, both inside and outside the noun phrase. This paper argues that certain syntactic phenomena, namely constituency, a subset of the Greenbergian word order correlations, and scoping, i.e., placement of adnominal modifiers according to their scopal relations, can be attributed to diachronic developments driven by cognitive processes where speakers attempt to place together what belongs together semantically (‘iconicity of distance’). (Notice that in the current approach the category of Modifiers includes both lexical or phrasal members [e.g., adjectives, possessive NPs, relative clauses] as well as bound and free grammatical material [e.g., articles, demonstratives, inflectional number affixes].) The synchronic result of these historical processes was already captured by Behaghel’s first law (Deutsche Syntax / Band 4. Wortstellung, Periodenbau. Heidelberg: Winter, 1932: 4): “The principal law is this: that what belongs together mentally is also placed close together” (Das oberste Gesetz ist dieses, daß das geistig eng Zusammengehörige auch eng zusammengestellt wird).
Three more specific ordering principles can be formulated on the basis of Behaghel’s first law: (1) the Principle of Domain Integrity, which can ultimately lead to the formation of hierarchically organized syntactic units (‘constituents’), (2) the Principle of Head Proximity, which may explain certain Greenbergian word order correlations, and (3) the Principle of Scope, which accounts for global ordering tendencies among adnominal modifiers in hierarchically structured noun phrases. It will be argued that these ordering principles are formal manifestations of a single cognitive, semantico-functional motivation or ‘diachronic force’ which is deemed to facilitate language processing: iconicity of distance, where “syntactic proximity mirrors semantic closeness” (Dyer, Integration Complexity and the Order of Cosisters. Proceedings of the Second Workshop on Universal Dependencies (UDW 2018). Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (Brussels, October 31–November 4). Brussels, Belgium, November 1, 2018: 55). This type of iconicity is now widely recognized as a universal principle underlying language structure (Schultze-Berndt, Linguistics 60(3), 865–898, 2022). Notice, finally, that for a convincing presentation of the effects of three general ordering principles mentioned above (each of which crucially involves nouns), it will be necessary to go beyond the noun and also take into account aspects of the syntactic organization of noun phrases and clauses.
Possession has been scarcely studied in the variety of Spanish in contact with Mapudungun and in Chilean Spanish. In this contribution, we analyze the nominal possessive constructions found in a corpus of interviews with speakers from five communities: three Mapudungun–Spanish bilingual communities from the Araucanía Region, one Spanish monolingual rural community from the Bío Bío Region, and one Spanish monolingual urban community from the Araucanía Region. The possessive constructions found in the contact Spanish, rural Spanish, and urban Spanish varieties are analyzed and compared to describe the domain of possession and to propose some possible explanations from the perspective of language contact theory for the case of the Spanish spoken by bilinguals. From the corpus of transcribed interviews, nominal possessive constructions were selected, classified, described, and compared. Double possession with restrictive relative clauses, and unstressed possessive pronouns plus a prepositional phrase with genitive/specific value, showed a limited frequency of occurrence. These constructions are analyzed using the Code-Copying framework. This perspective accounts for the observed equivalencies between both languages in contact and the constructions emerging in the bilinguals’ speech. This work contributes to the documentation of the variety and, more generally, to the description of the expression of possession in the Latin American contact varieties of Spanish.
ResearchGate has not been able to resolve any references for this publication.