Commonalities of French and Mandarin inalienable possession

Abstract

In terms of structure and prototype sub-classes, French and Mandarin present virtually no common ground in their treatment of inalienable possession (iposs). Most of French iposs grammar involves body parts or personal traits much more than kin terms. Mandarin iposs is more diffuse: whether kin terms or body parts rank higher on the prototypicality scale depends on the criteria selected. For associative phrases, Chappell/Thompson 1992 and others have found kin terms to have a significantly higher incidence of de omission than body parts. Other structures like the Passive of Bodily Effect (Chappell 1986) and Double Nominatives (Teng 1974) give body parts the edge.