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<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Dear Sergey,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Sonia Cristofaro gave a great talk at last SLE on the diachrony of different possessive constructions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Best,<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US">Françoise<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D;mso-fareast-language:EN-US"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">De :</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces@listserv.linguistlist.org>
<b>De la part de</b> Sergey Loesov<br>
<b>Envoyé :</b> vendredi 11 juin 2021 20:50<br>
<b>À :</b> lingtyp@listserv.linguistlist.org<br>
<b>Objet :</b> [Lingtyp] evolution of inalienable possession NP<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:106%">Dear colleagues,<span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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I wonder if somebody has studied the <b>evolution</b> of NPs encoding “inalienable possession” in the world’s languages.<span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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The question is related to my inquiry into the history of the Assyrian language, a now extinct East Semitic variety.<span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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The Old Assyrian languge (roughly, 19 century BC) had a <b>synthetic</b> NP construction with kinship terms and body parts as heads (“inalienable possession”): <i>a</i><i><span lang="EN-GB">χ</span>u</i> N “N’s brother”.
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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The <b>analytical</b> construction was used with most other heads, here the dependent substantive is governed by the preposition <i><span lang="EN-GB">ʃa: alpu ʃa </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">N “the ox of N”.
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">My internal reconstruction shows that the synthetic possessive NP with
</span>“inalienable” <span lang="EN-GB">head is a retention, since once an ancestor of Assyrian had no analytical construction at all, and no
</span>preposition <i><span lang="EN-GB">ʃa</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">. </span>
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Starting from this, I would assume that in <b>Neo-Assyrian</b> (roughly the 8<sup>th</sup> century BC) the analytical
<i>ʃa</i>-construction was going to oust completely the “inalienable” one: </span>
<i>a</i><i><span lang="EN-GB">χ</span>u</i> <i><span lang="EN-GB">ʃa</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">
</span>N “the brother of N” ~ <i><span lang="EN-GB">alpu ʃa </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">N “the ox of N”.
</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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But actually <span lang="EN-GB">“inalienable” heads, rather than lose their specific syntactic feature, developed a brand-new NP construction, with an obligatorily anticipatory pronoun: </span><i>a</i><i><span lang="EN-GB">χ</span>u-</i><b><i><span lang="EN-GB">ʃu</span></i></b> <i><span lang="EN-GB">ʃa</span></i><span lang="EN-GB">
</span>N lit. “brother-<b>his</b> of N” vs. <i><span lang="EN-GB">alpu ʃa </span></i><span lang="EN-GB">N “the ox of N”.</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Are you aware of similar developments elsewhere?</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Best wishes,</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span lang="EN-GB">Sergey</span><span style="font-size:11.0pt;line-height:106%;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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