‘It's mine!’. Re-thinking the conceptual semantics of “possession” through NSM

Abstract

This study has two main parts. It begins with a conceptual and semantic analysis in the Natural Semantic Metalanguage (NSM) framework (Wierzbicka, 1996; Peeters, 2006) Goddard and Wierzbicka, 2002, 2014a) of what linguists term “true possession” or “ownership”. The requirements of the NSM framework force the analysis to be conducted using very simple expressions that are available not only in English, but (ideally) in all languages. The main proposal is that true possession is anchored in a semantic prime with an egocentric perspective that occurs in a predicative construction, i.e. (is) mine. It is argued that expressions like ‘This is mine’ are semantically irreducible and (very likely) universally expressible across the diversity of the world's languages. In the second part of the study, three semantically and grammatically complex “possession verbs” are examined: steal, give, and own. Intricate (but coherent) explications for the English versions of these words are proposed, using (is) mine and a range of other semantic components. Though no claim is made that all languages possess precisely these meanings, this study hopes to help pave the way for a lexical semantic typology of “ownership-related” concepts in the languages of the world.