Possessive Nominalization in Kove

Abstract

Kove, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea, has both direct and indirect possessive constructions. Indirect possession is expressed with two different possessive markers, a and le , depending upon the relation between the possessor and the possessee. These morphemes mark a distinction between active and passive possession. Active possession, where a possessor is the agent in the event or the notional subject of a nominalized verb, is expressed by le- type, while passive possession, where a possessor is the patient in the event or the notional direct object of a nominalized verb, is expressed by a . The le- type and the a- type markers cannot stand next to one another. However, they can cooccur at different structural levels if the erstwhile direct object is a lexical noun phrase, and the le- type marker has in its scope the possessive construction that contains the a- type marker.