MatrixDoc_AdnominalPossession

Possessive strategies vs. possessor pronouns

As used in the adnominal possession customization page, the terms possessive strategy and possessor pronoun refer to different phenomena, though the delineation between the two is not always clear, given the overlap between the two. Here are some examples of phenomena in various languages, with the best analysis (possessive strategy or possessor pronoun) indicated.

Examples of possessive strategies:

• Neither argument may be a pronoun:

English ('s-possessive) the cat's paw *I's paw

• The possessor can be a pronoun, but the pronoun is not distinct from non-possessive pronouns:

Japanese (possessor marked by a clitic)

sensee	no	hon
teacher	POSS	book

‘the teacher's book’

watashi	no	ofisu
1SG	POSS	office

‘my office’

[Nazikian, F., Hudson, M. (2014). Modern Japanese Grammar. London: Routledge.]

• Fijian (possessum marked by adposition; possessor unmarked)

a	mata-i	Jone
a	eye-POSS	John

‘John’s eye’

a	liga-i	‘eirau
art	hand-POSS	1DU.EXCL

‘our hand(s)’

[Dryer, Matthew S. & Haspelmath, Martin (eds.) 2013. The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at http://wals.info, Accessed on 2018-02-14.) ]

====Examples of possessor pronouns:====

• The possessor pronoun is entirely different from non-possessive pronouns

English

my	hat
1SG.POSS	hat

‘my hat’

• The possessor pronoun is an affix on the possessum

Hungarian:

a	kalap-unk
the	hat-1PL.POSS

‘our hat’ (Szabolcsi, 1994)

• The possessor pronoun can be analyzed as pronoun+possessive affix. NOTE: though it might be more sensible to call this a possessive strategy, currently, these cases are analyzed as single, atomic possessive pronouns, with no internal morphology.

On the specifier/modifier distinction:

Specifier-like possessors. In some strategies, the possessor takes the place that one would expect a specifier (such as a determiner) to take. English is a good example of this phenomenon:

Pat's book *the Pat's book

The possessum, book, cannot take a determiner, because the specifier role is being filled by the possessor Pat's.

Specifier-like possessors are also characterize by a word order wherein modifiers of the possessum appear between the possessor and the possessum:

Pat's blue book *blue Pat's book (where the book is the thing that is blue)

Modifier-like possessors. In some strategies the possessor functions more like a modifier of the possessum. Ancient Greek is an example of this kind of language. As seen below, the possessum can take an article irrespective of whether or not the possessor appears:

he:	toû	patros	oikia
the.F.SG.NOM	the.M.SG.GEN	father(M).SG.GEN	house(F)Sg.NOM

'the father's house' [gre]

Modifier-like possessors are also able to appear in varying orders relative to other modifiers.

NB: if you don't have data that suggests one analysis over another, the specifier-like analysis is a recommended default.

The specifier/modifier distinction in possessor pronouns:

Like full NP possessors, possessor pronouns can also act either like specifiers or modifiers.