Possessives and the distinction between determiners and modifiers (with special reference to German)

Abstract

In Section 5 of his paper on 'The syntax of English genitive constructions' Christopher Lyons (I986) distinguishes 'determiner-genitive' (DG) and 'adjectival-genitive' (AG) languages, depending on whether genitives, including possessive pronouns, perform determiner (or specifier) or modifier function. English is a DG language: genitives in determiner function force a definite interpretation (John's/his house 'the house of John/him', *' a house of John's/his'), with an alternative, complement construction having to be resorted to to express indefiniteness (a house of John's/his); possessives thus pre-empt the use of a definite article (*the his house) and prohibit the use of an indefinite article (according to Lyons 'a cardinality expression generated in mod[ifier] position', *his a house). Italian is an AG language: possessives are generated in the modifier rather than the determiner slot and thus neither pre-empt a definite article in determiner function (la sua casa) nor prohibit an indefinite article (una sua casa, according to Lyons's reasoning for English presumably also in a modifier position, preceding possessive and adjectival modifiers). Spanish is both a DG and an AG language, with possessives functioning as determiners when prenominal ((*la/*una) su casa) and as modifiers when postnominal (la/una casa suya, with the long form of the pronoun as opposed to the prenominal short form).