Predicative Possession Research Articles

What can the taxonomy of predicative possession in Malwai Punjabi tell us?

Abstract The study aims to examine the syntactic and semantic behaviors of predicative possession (i.e., have-possessive constructions) in Malwai Punjabi, an underdocumented dialect within the Indo-Aryan language family. Data were collected from longitudinal online interviews with native speakers as consultants, with audio recordings for transcribed target sentences. The results revealed that all the alienable possession, either permanent/temporary or abstract/concrete, could be marked by the postposition koḷ ‘near/with’, whereas inalienable possession, such as whole-part relation and kinship, could not be encoded using koḷ. The prototypicality model and schema-based metaphors explained why koḷ was widely used to express alienable possession in Malwai Punjabi. The analysis of companion and proximity schemata also justified the extended semantics of predicative possession, suggesting a metaphorical mapping of accompaniment and location onto possession. From a typological angle, the case study can not only provide further evidence for the existence of split possession but also contribute to a cognitive understanding of predicative possession in relation to other languages.

Existential, locative and possessive predication in Kamas

Abstract This paper describes and analyses existential, locative and possessive predications in Kamas. Starting from a functional-semantic perspective, we show that the three types of predications share many features, but they also exhibit some important differences. Given that two layers of Kamas can be distinguished, we demonstrate that the reactivated Kamas of the last speaker, Klavdiya Plotnikova, exhibits some peculiarities which can be explained partly by Russian influence. The most important result of the study is that the boundaries between the three predication types are rather fluid in Kamas, whereas the distinction between affirmative and negative clauses is morphosyntactically unambiguously manifested. This polarity split, given that it is seldom recognised in the general literature, may provide important implications for linguistic typology and theory.

Mental states via possessive predication: the grammar of possessive experiencer complex predicates in Persian

Persian possesses a number of stative complex predicates with dâshtan ‘to have’ that express certain kinds of mental state. I propose that these possessive experiencer complex predicates be given a formal semantic treatment involving possession of a portion of an abstract quality by an individual, as in the analysis of property concept lexemes due to Francez and Koontz-Garboden (Language 91(3):533–563, 2015; Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 34:93–106, 2016; Semantics and morphosyntactic variation: Qualities and the grammar of property concepts, Oxford University Press, 2017). Augmented with an analysis of prepositional phrases introducing the target of the mental state and an approach to gradability in terms of measure functions (Wellwood in Measuring predicates, PhD dissertation, University of Maryland, College Park, 2014), the analysis explains various properties of possessive experiencer complex predicates, including the behavior of target phrases, the ability of the non-verbal element to be modified by a range of adjectives, the direct participation of the non-verbal element in comparative constructions, and the ability of degree expressions to modify both the non-verbal element and the VP containing the complex predicate. Theoretically, the analysis ties transitive mental state expressions to the grammar and semantics of property concept sentences, which are expressed via possessive morphosyntax cross-linguistically, and connects with syntactic proposals that independently argue for a universal underlyingly possessive morphosyntax for mental state predicates (Noonan in Case and syntactic geometry, PhD dissertation, McGill University, 1992; Hale and Keyser in Prolegomenon to a theory of argument structure, MIT Press, 2002). The work here also motivates modifications to Francez and Koontz-Garboden’s original proposal, and opens new questions in the original empirical domain of the analysis of possessive predicating strategies for the expression of property concept sentences.

Possessive construction in the Kurdish language

Abstract The present study investigates Possessive Constructions and domains of possession in Kalhori Kurdish (KK) from a Cognitive Linguistics perspective to reveal the arrangement of constituents and relationships between the head (possessee) and dependent (possessor). This qualitative descriptive-analytical study collected data by interviewing KK speakers in Iran. The results indicate that KK speakers employ both the B-construction (­hin-e­) and Be-construction (ha) at the clause level to denote predicative possession characterized by [−whole-part, −kinship] relationships and [+alienable] ownership. Additionally, KK speakers were found to utilize the H-construction (/dire/) at the clause level associated with [+whole-part, +kinship] relationships and [±alienable] ownership. KK speakers also employ possession splits in nominal/attributive possession by attaching the possessor, marked by the [+human] feature, to the possessee, marked by the [±human] feature, as an affix.

Possessive marking strategies in Mehináku (Arawak)

In this paper, I describe the possessive constructions in Mehináku, highlighting the types of strategies found in the language, so far, to express possession relationships. I present two major types of possession constructions: (i) nominal (also known as attributive) possession, and (ii) predicative possessive constructions, which involve both the use of nouns and verbs. Regarding nominal possession, Mehináku, like other Arawak languages ​​(PAYNE, 1991; AIKHENVALD, 1999), recognizes a split between inalienably possessed and alienably possessed nouns, expressed through the attribution of different morphemes to these nouns. Inalienable nouns, for example, receive fewer morphological formatives, including only the marks of person and agreement with possessor and number, whereas alienable nouns can occur without the presence of an obligatory possessor. In this case, they will carry, in addition to the morphological formatives that appear in the inalienable nouns, specific morphemes of alienable possession. Predicative possession constructions, in turn, are formed mainly by juxtaposition, but also by other strategies, such as prefixing the attributive morpheme ka- (k-, before vowels) to the noun or verb; or through the suffixation of the existential morpheme =waka, among other possibilities.

Existential predication and predicative possession in Arabic dialects

AbstractIn the existential domain, Classical Arabic expresses the ground > figure perspectivization in locational predication by a mere change in constituent order, but Modern Arabic varieties have variously grammaticalized existential particles that tend to acquire verb-like properties. In the possessive domain, Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic have a typical oblique-possessor (or locational possessive) construction in which the possessor phrase is flagged by a preposition. In the vernacular varieties, this preposition has become a possessive predicator with some verbal properties, whose coding frame is similar (although not fully identical) to that of a transitive verb. More radical changes in the existential and possessive domains are attested in pidginized/creolized Arabic varieties.

Possessive and Caritive in Nivkh

Abstract This paper focuses on the various encoding strategies and other relevant issues pertaining to affirmative and negative predicative possession in the two Amuric languages, Amur Nivkh and Sakhalin Nivkh (Nighvng). One of the goals is to demonstrate that possessive negation serves as a major strategy for expressing caritive semantics (= non-involvement). Constructions rendering possessive and caritive meanings represent one of the basic and rather frequent types of clauses in Nivkh, and they are also interconnected both semantically and grammatically with other clause types. Some of the constructions present in Nivkh have analogues in the neighboring languages, while others are specific to Nivkh. The present paper, based on the author’s field materials, represents the first specific study of this topic.

Predicative Possession in Learning English: Syntactic Study

The discussion on predicative possession is actually a fairly broad discussion. The aspect studied in this paper is looking at the construction of ownership verbs in the English possession predicate. Viewed from the point of view of the study this paper is grouped into language studies in terms of syntax. The method used is descriptive qualitative method. The theory in this paper refers to the theory of Quirk (1973), Halliday (1985), Cook (1989), and Jackendoff (1977). The data used in this paper are taken from The British National Corpus (http://www.notcorp.ox.ac.uk/). The data collected contains sentences with the predicate of ownership in English with the verb “have”, “own”, “possess”, and “belong to”. From the results of research on the predicative possession in English, it can be concluded as follows. Lingual elements that can fill the possession predicate are a) The "have" possession predicate, which consists of several patterns as follows: active pattern (S+V+O), (S+V+O+A), (S+V+O+OC), and (S+V+O+OC+A); b) The "own" possession predicate consists on the following patterns: active sentence patterns (S+V+O), (S+V+O+A), (S+V+O+OC), and (S+V+O+OC+A) and passive sentence patterns with patterns (S+V+O), (S+V+O+A), (S+V+O+OC) and (S+V+O+OC+A) c) The "possess" possession predicate consists on several patterns as follows: active pattern (S+V+O), (S+V+O+A), (S+V+O+OC) dan (S+ V+O+OC+A); d). The "belong to" possession predicate consists of the following patterns: Active sentences (S+V+O), (S+V+O+A), (S+V+O+OC), and (S+V+O+OC +A).

Predicative Possession in Learning English: Syntactic Study

Predicative Possession in Learning English: Syntactic Study

Approaches to Predicative Possession: The View from Slavic and Finno-Ugric ed. by Gréte Dalmi, Jacek Witkoś, and Piotr Cegłowski (review)

Approaches to Predicative Possession: The View from Slavic and Finno-Ugric ed. by Gréte Dalmi, Jacek Witkoś, and Piotr Cegłowski (review)

The syntactic status of arguments in the construction of predicative possession in NENA Urmi dialect

The syntactic status of arguments in the construction of predicative possession in NENA Urmi dialect

The Development of the Russian u + GEN in the Ablative and Locative Directions

ABSTRACT This paper explores the functions of the prepositional phrase consisting of the preposition u ‘at’ and the genitive with human referent (henceforth indicated as u + GEN) in the history of Russian. In Modern Russian, u + GEN encodes predicative possession, external possessor and the human non-recipient third argument of the verb of ‘removing’, ‘buying’ and ‘asking/requesting’. Based on the analysis of the Primary Chronicle and the Old East Slavic and the Middle Russian Subcorpora of the Russian National Corpus, the present research aims to demonstrate that the roles of u + GEN should be considered within the Ablative-Locative spread in which u + GEN superseded the locative role and at the same time retained the ablative role. According to the Corpora, u + GEN was already used as a human non-recipient 3rd argument of the mentioned three groups of verbs in Old East Slavic and the entrenchment of this encoding was prominent in Middle Russian. I assume that u + GEN retained its ablative function due to a language-internal drift in the development of the possessive function of the u + GEN and to the influence of language contacts, in which bilingual North Finnic speakers transferred the locative-ablative case syncretism of their mother tongue to Old East Slavic and Middle Russian.

Notes on Coptic Possessive Predication

Summary The aim of this paper is to present a linguistically valid description of Coptic (or, more precisely, Sahidic) possessive predication construction, both from the diachronic and the synchronic points of view. The first section treats the complex possessive predication system in Demotic, largely based upon Quack 2020 with some additional observations. The second section discusses possible causes for the shift of the possessor-argument, introduced by the preposition mtw-, to the immediate proximity of the existential verboid wn-. Section 3 aims to explain the origin and the usage of the double suffix possessive pattern (ⲉⲧⲉⲟⲩⲛⲧⲁ-ⲓ-ϥ). Section 4 deals with argument marking in the Sahidic possessive predication, looking for the features that speak for or against the ‘have-drift’. Section 5 discusses the syntactic alternatives of the ⲟⲩⲛⲧⲁ-pattern. The final section attempts to find the semantic mechanisms behind the use of the adverb ⲙⲙⲁⲩ in the basic possessive predication pattern.

Predicative possession across Western Iranian languages

Abstract This paper offers a first systematic investigation of predicative possessive constructions across Western Iranian languages. The notion of possession is conceived as a prototypical domain. It is shown that investigated languages are classified into two major areally distributed groups with respect to predicative possessive constructions: (i) “be”-verb languages, (ii) “have”-verb languages. “Have”-possessives, which originated from “action schema”, are argued to have superseded the archaic “be”-possessives, which trigger a non-canonical marking of the possessor argument. However, “have”-verb languages have preserved relics of the older “be”-possessive in some neighbouring domains to possession. In addition, two languages exhibit possession split and are in transition from “be”-possession to “have”-possession: these languages demonstrate the effect of alienability/inalienability in such a split.

Corrigendum to: Topicality and the typology of predicative possession

Corrigendum to: Topicality and the typology of predicative possession

A distinct aspectual analysis of predicative possession in Brazilian Portuguese

We provide an aspectual analysis of Brazilian Portuguese predicative possessives, ter ('have') NP vs. estar com ('to be with') NP, which have been analyzed as denoting permanent versus temporary possession, respectively. Data include 20th century tokens of estar com NP (n=553) and ter NP (n=2976) from Davies' Corpus do Português. These data show that both possessive constructions can occur with the same temporal/aspectual reference and possessum, but that ter NP has a 0.55 type-token ratio while estar com NP shows significantly lower (p<0.01) productivity (0.41). An online experimental survey in which we manipulated the possessum and the duration of the possession was designed and responded to by over 200 native Brazilian participants. Results show that while both forms are possible in all contexts they are nevertheless sensitive to the duration of the possession, thus suggesting that the association with permanent versus temporary possession is pragmatic in nature. We propose that estar com NP’s possessive interval is co-extensive with the reference interval supplied by context, while ter NP’s possessive interval is a superinterval of the reference interval, like progressive and imperfective aspects, respectively (Deo 2009).

‘Need’ with Accusative in Russian

ABSTRACTThe paper is a corpus-based study of a construction of spoken Russian consisting of the adverbial necessity modal nado/nužno ‘need’ followed by an accusative (genitive) complement. Although the construction has been noted in the literature, it has not received a detailed analysis, due to its colloquial nature and low frequency in the corpus. I investigate the distributional and semantic/pragmatic properties of this construction, contrasting it with the corresponding construction with nominative. I argue that the construction with accusative expresses prototypical possession (animate non-abstract possession), whereas the construction with nominative can but need not express (prototypical) possession. I also argue that the construction with accusative is inherently subjective as it expresses the perspective of some individual (typically, the speaker), whereas the construction with nominative, again, can but need not express subjectivity. I provide evidence for both claims, showing that neither alone can account for the distribution of the two constructions. Finally, I briefly discuss two other constructions, namely verbless subjunctive with nouns and the construction with an elided modal showing that they can also be analyzed as expressing prototypical possession. The proposed account, if correct, can shed light on the syntax of predicative possession, an important topic in Russian grammar.

Isomorphic co-expression of nominal predication subdomains: An Indo-Iranian case study

Abstract This paper explores the isomorphic co-expression of nominal predication subdomains across ten Indo-Iranian languages. Unlike many previous studies, this paper takes into account combinations of structural coding means, and does not limit its scope to the copula. Further this paper does not limit its attention to “primary” strategies and also takes into account “secondary” or “rare” attested strategies. Then, this paper presents a method based on bipartite graphs to visualize and compare patterns by which two subdomains of nominal predication are co-expressed by isomorphic combinations of coding means. The results show that every pair of subdomains is co-expressed at least somewhere across the family. In five of the ten languages studied here, predicative possession is expressed by the coding means usually used for equation or proper inclusion, but never as the main strategy to express predicative possession. This suggests that unlike what scholars have so far assumed, such situations may be crosslinguistically common but intra-linguistically rare. Another surprising result is the rare isomorphic co-expression of predicative possession and predicate location (i. e. with completely identical morphosyntax), but the much more common co-expression of predicative possession and existence. Altogether, this paper highlights the importance of taking into account intra-linguistic variation in morphosyntactic comparison.

The u+gen construction in Modern Standard Russian

Abstract In Modern Standard Russian (MSR), the prefix/preposition pair u-/u is peculiar with respect to other similar pairs, due to the meaning mismatch between the two. While the prefix u- has an ablative meaning, as shown when it is prefixed to motion verbs, the prepositional phrase u+gen occurs in locative constructions, and other related constructions, such as predicative possession that is expressed via the cross-linguistically common Locative Schema. Etymological considerations show that the meaning preserved by the prefix is older. The only type of occurrence which, according to the literature, preserves the ablative meaning for the u+gen construction is found with verbs of requesting, removing, and buying. Notably, however, in other Slavic languages putative ablative contexts are limited to verbs of requesting. Data from MSR, Old Church Slavic, Polish and Czech lead to the conclusion that the extension of the u+gen construction to verbs of removing in MSR is based on its use for the encoding of predicative possession. Extension to verbs of buying is better explained through the locative meaning of the construction. As a result of different developments, the u+gen construction has become part of the argument structure of a group of verbs including verbs of asking and requesting, verbs of removing, and verbs of buying, which are characterized by the common feature of taking human non-recipient third arguments. We argue that the different usages of the u+gen construction in MSR constitute an instance of constructionalization based on the merger of originally different constructions. We further argue that accounting for this development in constructional terms offers better insights in the relation among the various different usages of u+gen than simply focusing on the meaning of the preposition and its polysemy pattern.

Topicality and the typology of predicative possession

AbstractRecent accounts on the typology of predicative possession, including those by Stassen, recognise a Topic Possessive type with the possessee coded like the figure in an existential predication, and the possessor coded as a topic that is not subcategorised by the predicate and is not related to any syntactic position in the comment, literally: As for Possessor, there is Possessee. The Asian region is explicitly singled out as being a Topic Possessive area.On the basis of a sample of 71 languages from the four main language families of continental East and Southeast Asia – Sino-Tibetan, Hmong-Mien, Tai-Kadai and Austroasiatic, contrary to these previous accounts of the distribution of the main types of predicative possession in the world’s languages, we argue that this area should rather be considered as showing a particularly high concentration of Have-Possessives, with the additional particularity that the verbs occurring in the Have-Possessive constructions in this linguistic area are polysemous verbs also used for existential predication.After briefly reviewing Stassen’s typology of predicative possession, we discuss his account of the Topic Possessive type and then present five arguments for considering why the possessor NP of the existential/possessive verbyǒu有 in Standard Mandarin Chinese cannot be analysed as invariably occupying the position of a topic, and consequently, that the construction should be reclassified as an instance of the Have-Possessive type. In the final sections, the situation is examined for other Southeast Asian languages showing the same configuration for predicative possession and existential predication as Standard Mandarin, to the extent that data is available.