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Sebastian Löbner's recent post is interesting; however, that
"concept types" play a role in explaining alienability coding
contrasts, as in recent work by Löbner and Ortmann (and appearently
also in Karvovskaya's 2018 dissertation, which I haven't studied
yet), has long been the dominant view – but what exactly is a
"semantic explanation"?<br>
<br>
Why does "congruence" lead to lack of marking? What is the causal
mechanism – is it simply Haiman's "iconic motivation"?<br>
<br>
I discussed these issues with respect to Ortmann's (2018) paper in
this 2020 blogpost: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2385">https://dlc.hypotheses.org/2385</a>. Ortmann does
not really specify the causal mechanism, and he has trouble
explaining antipossessive marking (as found in several Mayan
languages, and sporadically elsewhere). He also struggles to explain
simple genitive marking (as in English or Japanese), because it does
not seem to have a meaning, while possessive meaning is unexpressed.<br>
<br>
Moreover, closer to home, it appears that this proposal does not
explain *phonological* length effects – it seems that it only
explains zero vs. overt contrasts.<br>
<br>
Thus, I think that an expectation-based theory (in terms of
efficient coding) fares better than a purely "semantic explanation",
because it accounts for all these effects.<br>
<br>
Martin<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Am 03.02.22 um 16:32 schrieb Sebastian
Löbner:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:c8fa78b8-bc73-4534-a49f-829c96005f0f@hhu.de">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<font size="4">A <span lang="EN-US">semantic explanation for the
observed asymmetry between the marking (if distinguished) of
adnominal inalienable vs alienable possession is proposed in
my Theory of Concept Types and Determination (CTD, Löbner
2011). According to CTD, inalienable possession occurs with
relational nouns. This type of noun is congruent (unmarked)
with possessive determination since the noun concept contains
a relational argument that is in need of specification in a
“possessive” construction. Nonrelational nouns lack such an
argument and are hence congruent with absolute determination.
For the use with possessive determination, a nonrelational
noun concept needs to be accommodated with a relational
argument. The process may be expressed by extra
morphosyntactic marking in addition to mere possessor
specification.</span></font><br>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap=""><span lang="EN-US"></span></pre>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">For a typological survey
in this framework, see Ortmann (2018); for a study of the
observed split in Hungarian, Ortmann & Gerland (2014)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Löbner (2011) <i
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Concept types and
determination. </i>doi 10.1093/jos/ffq022<br>
Ortmann & Gerland (2014) <i>She loves you, -ja -ja -ja:
objective conjugation and pragmatic possession in Hungaria</i>n.
doi <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110720075-011"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">10.1515/9783110720075-011</a><br>
Ortmann (2018)<i> Connecting the typology and semantics of
nominal possession: alienability splits and the
morphology–semantics interface</i> 10.1007/s11525-017-9319-6</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-US">Sebastian Löbner<br>
</span></p>
<br>
<fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset>
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</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Martin Haspelmath
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Deutscher Platz 6
D-04103 Leipzig
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/">https://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/</a></pre>
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