possessive marking

[Matti Miestamo]

Dear Typologists,

Leon Stassen wrote:

> 2. NENETS (aka YURAK). In this Tungusic language double-marking is
> possible, but the option without HEAD-marking is also mentioned; it may be
> a difference in dialects.

Nenets is a Samoyedic language and thus Uralic, not Tungus.
 
> 3. MORDVIN. Perhaps other Uralic languages have (or have had) the
> double-marking option as well. HUNGARIAN has double-marking, but the case
> suffix on the ATTR seems to be optional if the ATTR is indefinite.

Standard Finnish nish has double marking with possessive pronouns. In the 1st and 2nd persons the 
possessive pronoun is optional.

(minu-n) talo-ni 'my house'
I-Gen house-1sgPoss

(sinu-n) talo-si 'your(sg) house'
you-Gen house-2sgPoss

häne-n talo-nsa 'her/his house'
(s)he-Gen house-3Poss

The plurals follow the same pattern (meidän talomme, teidän talonne, heidän 
talonsa).

With genitive nouns, common and proper, possessive suffixes are not used.

Jussi-n talo 'Jussi's house'
Jussi-Gen house

In Colloquial Finnish possessive suffixes are generally not used.

mu-n talo 'my house'
I-Gen house

su-n talo 'your(sg) house'
you-Gen house

se-n talo 'her/his/its house'
(s)he/it-Gen house


>Just a shot in the dark: all languages listed above are at least
>predominantly verb-final. Is this just coincidence, or what?

Finnish is SVO, but it is losing the head marking.

Best reagrds,
Matti Miestamo
General Linguistics
Univ. of Helsinki
matmies at ling.helsinki.fi