Possessive Marking

[Gideon Goldenberg]

 Head-marking and dependent-marking are types
of possessive marking, but not necessarily of
languages.Within the Semitic family there are
attested  various possibilities of possessive
marking,  viz. on the head, on the dependent,
on both or on none, v. LOAPL 5-6 (1995) 1-20.
More than one type is often found in the same
language, sometimes with differetiation,as in
Turkish between  construction with  Possessum
in the Genitive and that of  Possessum in the
Absolute case.  Besides, where the possessor-
marker contains or implies a pronominal head,
the possessed nominal is in fact in apposition
with that pronominal. Attributive expressions
also contain, or imply,  a pronominal head in
adjectives which are inflected  (for gender &
number), whence the term "pronominal adjecti-
ves" [mestoimennyje prilagatel'nyje]  that is
common in Russian grammar for "long" adjs.
We might then say that such adjectives reflect
in their internal constitution of a possessor-
possessum syntagm. By the way, this happens to
be an old commonplace of linguistic analysis.

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Gideon Goldenberg, Dept. of Linguistics,
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt. Scopus
IL-91905 Jerusalem, Israel
Home Address: 48 Ben-Maimon Avenue,
IL-92261 Jerusalem, Israel
Tel.& Fax: +972-2-5665135
E-mail: <msgidgol at pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il>
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