Origin of genitive and possessive constructions

[Suzie Bartsch]

 Dear all,

For a paper on overextension and grammaticalization in the emergence of
genitive constructions in ontogeny, compared to diachrony, I'm searching
for functional-cognitive accounts on the historical emergence and
grammaticalization of possessive and genitive constructions in German,
English and Portuguese (and other languages as well), in following
idioms (for practical reasons I simplify here the Engl. correspondance
to the Port. and Germ. examples and sorry for possible English
ungrammaticalities):

    (1a) Engl. It's my turn.
    (1b) Engl. It's Gabriel's turn.

    (2a) Port. É a minha vez.
                    [Is the my turn (vez  < Lat. vici 'change,
rotation,
turn')]

    (2b) Port. É a vez do Gabriel.
                    [Is the turn of-the Gabriel.]

in contrast to
    (3a) Germ. Ich bin dran
                      [I am there-at.]
                or
                      Ich bin an der Reihe.
                      [I am at the row.]

    (3b) Germ. Gabriel ist dran.
                      [Gabriel is there-at.]
                or
                      Gabriel ist an der Reihe.
                      [Gabriel is at the row.]

That is, the main referent of such idioms appears in modern German in
nominative,
as a subject, whereas in mod. English and mod. Port., it's realized
with
a
possessive pronoun or with a genitive construction (declination in
Engl.,
preposition in Port.).

Other - idiomatic and non-idiomatic - functions of genitive
constructions, as
the genuine possessive genitive and also in the context of which is
called in
the traditional latin grammar as genitivus subjectivus, genitivus
objectivus
etc. interest me as well.

The following example from English (historical subject-object shift
due
to
functional reanalyses and analogy in the context of serialization
patterns)
gives an idea of the sort of accounts which I'm searching for:

(4a) O. Engl. Pam kynge licoden peran.
                    To the king-[dative] were-pleasing pears. (pears =
plural subject)

(4b) M. Engl. The king licenden peares.
                      The king were-pleasing pears. (no dative
marking)

(4c) Mod. Engl. The king liked pears. (S-->O and O-->S)

Example from Tomasello, Michael (2003): Constructing a Language: A
Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition. Cambridge, MA & London:
Harvard Univ. Press. (p.15-16)

Thanks in advance.

Suzie Bartsch