Abstract
Abstract In this brief discussion note I consider rise of (in)alienability splits in Tungusic languages in a typological perspective. I provide typological arguments for the diachronic scenario (originally due to Sunik 1947), in which the interrogative pronoun ƞüi ‘who’ developed nominalizing and deictic function, subsequently giving rise to free possessive construction, on the one hand, and the alienability marker, on the other hand. It is shown that the proposed, typologically informed scenario can successfully account for peculiarities of the inalienable possession and related possessive markers in Tungusic languages, which alternative scenarios are not able to explain.
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