Genitive Alternations of the One’s Own Possessive Construction

Abstract

Possessive constructions have received considerable attention from researchers who have concentrated exclusively on genitive alternations. This paper aims to introduce a new type of possessive construction, the one’s own construction, focusing, inter alia, on quantitative and statistical analyses of its genitive alternation, as there is still no research in this area. This new type of possessive construction also shows a genitive alternation of the s-genitive own and the of-genitive own, similar to that of regular possessive constructions. The study intends to identify the crucial factors that determine the use of these two alternative genitive forms. Following the conventional wisdom, the study adopts as variables four semantic factors-animacy, abstractness, alienability, and part-whole, and distinguishes the differences among the types. The results show that (1) the more animate the referent of a possessum is, the more likely it is to occur in the of-genitive own construction; (2) the abstract possessum appears more frequently as an s-genitive own construction; (3) the more inalienable the relationship is, the more likely it is to be realized as an of-genitive own construction; and (4) the s-genitive own shows a much stronger part-whole relationship than the of-genitive own construction. These findings prove statistically significant. Focusing on these results, this study concludes that the syntactic distribution of the of-genitive own type is determined by the semantic or pragmatic features, ultimately identifying a distinctive grammatical feature: specifically, the of-genitive own type is a grammatical construction of its own to denote the stronger degree of close possession established between animate entities.