10.847, Sum: Possession in Hebrew

[LINGUIST Network]

LINGUIST List:  Vol-10-847. Fri Jun 4 1999. ISSN: 1068-4875.

Subject: 10.847, Sum: Possession in Hebrew

Moderators: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar: Wayne State U.<aristar at linguistlist.org>
            Helen Dry: Eastern Michigan U. <hdry at linguistlist.org>
            Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Andrew Carnie: U. of Arizona <carnie at linguistlist.org>

Associate Editors:  Martin Jacobsen <marty at linguistlist.org>
                    Brett Churchill <brett at linguistlist.org>
                    Ljuba Veselinova <ljuba at linguistlist.org>

Assistant Editors:  Scott Fults <scott at linguistlist.org>
		    Jody Huellmantel <jody at linguistlist.org>
		    Karen Milligan <karen at linguistlist.org>

Software development: John H. Remmers <remmers at emunix.emich.edu>
                      Chris Brown <chris at linguistlist.org>

Home Page:  http://linguistlist.org/


Editor for this issue: Jody Huellmantel <jody at linguistlist.org>

=================================Directory=================================

1)
Date:  Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:18:46 +0300
From:  "Simona Herdan" <simona at interplus.ro>
Subject:  Sum: Possession in Hebrew

-------------------------------- Message 1 -------------------------------

Date:  Thu, 3 Jun 1999 10:18:46 +0300
From:  "Simona Herdan" <simona at interplus.ro>
Subject:  Sum: Possession in Hebrew


First I would like to thank everyone who took the time to resond to my
query. I was simply overwhelmed with responses and it took me quite a
while to make up a summary.  Here's a list of everyone who replied (my
apologies to anyone I might have missed!)

Glenn Ayres <gayres at alpha.sg.inter.edu>
Farooq Babrakzai <babrak at hawaii.edu>
Donn Bayard <ANTH03 at rivendell.otago.ac.nz>
Andolin Eguzkitza Bilbao <frpegbia at vc.ehu.es>
Francis Bond <bond at cslab.kecl.ntt.co.jp>
Jean-Frangois Bourdin <jbourdinf at magic.fr>
Joel Boyd <joel.boyd at wmich.edu>
Benjamin T. Bruening <muawiya at MIT.EDU>
Chris Butler <cbutler at mx4.redestb.es>
Gaby Charing <gcharing at dial.pipex.com>
Gema Chocano gema.chocano at uam.es
Vern Curts <vcurts at midco.net>
Nikolai A. Dobronravin <nikolai at ND1506.spb.edu>
Kathleen Evans-Romaine <evans-rk at ohio.edu>
Gisbert Fanselow fanselow at rz.uni-potsdam.de
Stephane Goyette s455152 at aix1.uottawa.ca
Mohamed Guerssel <Guerssel.mohamed at uqam.ca>
Karen A. Van Hoek <kvh at umich.edu>
Jussi Hakokari <juveha at utu.fi>
Mark Irwin <padz at ilcs.hokudai.ac.jp>
Natalia Kondrashova <nyk1 at cornell.edu>
Rina Kreitman kreitman at netvision.net.il
Richard Laurent <laurent28 at hotmail.com>
John Peterson John.Peterson at germanistik.uni-muenchen.de
Seongha Rhee <seongha at shinbiro.com>
Deborah D K Ruuskanen <druuskan at cc.helsinki.fi>
Geoffrey Sampson <geoffs at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Ellen Schur <ellens at oumail.openu.ac.il>
Robin Setton robset at easynet.fr
Alexandra Terano <cassyterno at yahoo.com>
Yishai Tobin yishai at bgumail.bgu.ac.il
Takae Tsujioka <tsujiokt at gusun.georgetown.edu>
Theo Vennemann <tvn at cis.uni-muenchen.de>
Remy Viredaz <remy.viredaz at span.ch>
Maurice Williams <mauriceawilliams at hotmail.com>

For those who don't remember my query, I've pasted the original query here:

>I am gathering information for a project on various aspects of
>possession in Hebrew. What I find most interesting is the use of
>"there is/are" to render the present tense of "to have" and of the
>forms of "to be" for the other tenses. These verbal forms are followed
>by a preposition indicating goal/direction. So, literally, a sentence
>like "I had a book" would be translated as "A book WAS TO ME".
>
>I wonder if such correspondences between "to have" and "to be" exist
>in other languages too. I would very much appreciate any help in
>finding references to studies dealing with possession in general and
>also with this particular aspect of Hebrew or of another language.

The relationship between existence and possession seems to be quite
wide-spread cross-linguistically. As I have been told and noticed
myself from the examples I got, languages that lexicalize possession
by means of a verb similar to English "have" are quite a
"minority". Expressing possession as abstract location appears to be
cognitively salient, phenomenon which has already been studied. Some
of the languages that behave more or less like Hebrew are (in no
particular order):

Japanese
Finnish
Russian
Welsh and Insular Celtic Languages
Latin
Classical Persian
Chinese
Korean
Indo-iranian
Hindi
Classical Arabic
Turkish
Berber
Hausa

I have received lots of examples and references which are all very
interesting and helpful, which I won't mention here because the list
is too long. Anyone who is interested in the subject can contact me
and receive the list and the examples. Once again, thanks everyone.

Simona Herdan
Linguistics Student
University of Bucharest, Romania
simona at interplus.ro


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-10-847