possessives

[Frans Plank]

Dear possessive friends,

joining in belatedly and hardly able to catch up (held up by ichl iv--and
now I don't know how I can afford alt iii), I can't really contribute
anything very positive to this debate on head & dependent (non-)marking in
possessive/attributive constructions.

Still, for whatever this is worth, several years ago a group of us looked
at double marking of a different kind in such constructions, with the
dependent both case-marked for its own relation and case-marked in
agreement with its head--and one probable correlation of this marking
pattern that we identified was a tendency for these languages not to
differentiate adjectives and nouns (at least ones in the genitive) too
strictly.  See Double Case, New York: OUP, 1995.  Also, this particular
double-case marking pattern was situated within a more comprehensive
marking taxonomy, including that of both-dependent-and-head-marking which
is currently being debated (see esp. pp. 38ff.).  It was illustrated by a
medley of languages, but there did not seem to be any correlation with
anything else.  Also, checking the Universals Archive, at

http://www.ling.uni-konstanz.de/pages/proj/sprachbau.htm

no relevant claim seems to have gone on record since.  But this you can
easily check for yourselves, since searches in the Universals Archive can
be done on the net.  And please drop us a note in case anyone wants to go
on record with a claim that both-dependent-and-head-marking is involved in
any correlation.

As to both dependent and head remaining segmentally (or suprasegmentally)
UNmarked in such constructions, the only implication I am aware of is that
the linear ordering of head and dependent must be rigid if there is no
other relational marking.  This has been suggested, copiously exemplified
(including by earlier English), in a paper in Historical Morphology, ed. J.
Fisiak (The Hague: Mouton, 1980, pp. 289-325).  I'd be surprised if the
noun-adjective distinction were an implicans or an implicatum of such
frugal marking.

I'm sure there are many other relevant references where something similar
has been shown (some to be found in the references just given), but these I
remember best.

Frans Plank



Frans Plank
Sprachwissenschaft
Universitaet Konstanz
D-78457 Konstanz
Germany
E-mail:  frans.plank at uni-konstanz.de
Tel:   +49-(0)7531-88 2656, home +49-(0)7531-57450
Fax:   +49-(0)7531-88 4190