plurally possessed items

[Nina Dobrushina or Michael Daniel]

Dear all,

As Bernard answers to the yesterday's number query directly  the list, and as my
answer sent yesterday to the query-er goes much in the same line, I will quote it
here. The topic is of greatest interest to me, so I hope to benefit from the
discussion and to get some additional empyrical data.

Two more points - my speculation does not explain plural possession on 'friend', or
requires an additional speculation about the cultural background. Second, Bernard is
right in that sometimes 'my country' sounds queer even in European, but this
constraint does not seem to me to be as strong as saying 'my/your children' instead
of 'our children' speaking to ones wife. Also, it is true that in most native texts I
dealt with one says 'our village', not 'my village' - for instance in Bagvalal - but
I did not check whether it was obligatory (as it seems it is in Tsez) or simply
preferred.

Michael Daniel

Michael Daniel wrote on 25/03/03:

> Dear colleague,
>
> please regard this letter not as response to your query but as a question. I have
> been thinking about similar constructions; unfortunately I do not have a database
> of empyrical data, so your answer to this letter would probably be much more of
> interest to me than this letter itself to you.
>
> I would consider this issue differently. You say there are cases when a plural
> pronoun is used with singular reference. I'd object against this view and would
> say that in this cases the reference is plural.
> What happens is that possessor in such constructions is considered as
> _obligatorily plural_. I think what underlies the usage "your.pl son" is not
> singular reference. A son can not be born by a single person - at least two people
> are involved. That means, there are at least two people in the same possessive
> relation to the possessed item (son). And in some languages that is considered to
> be a reason to obligatorily use a plural possessor form. Same applies to other
> objects which presume collective possession. I would expect that in your target
> language words for 'country' and 'town' could behave in a similar way, don't they?
> Probably also in "my bus was late" said of a passenger - that could also be
> obligatorily plural, because there are also other passengers (if the relation
> between the bus and its passenger may at all be coded as possessive)..
> In such languages, saying "my.sg house" would assume that nobody else but you
> lives there. Does this work for Taiwanese?
>
> In other words, instead of positing singular reference for otherwise plural
> pronouns I would posit a class of obligatory plurally possessed items, so that
> when you use singular possessive form that means that there is no other person in
> the similar relation to the possessed item.
>
> I know of only one parallel in European languages - or at least in my native
> Russian - when you speak to your wife, saying 'my son' or 'your.sg sun' sounds
> either funny or offending. When talking to another possessor of the same item you
> obligatorily have to mention the same possessive relation connects the addressee to
> the possessed item, so that possession becomes obligatorily first person plural.
>
> I think somehting like this underlies Vietnamese fact, see
> Emeneau, M.B. 1951. Studies in Vietnamese
> (Annamese) Grammar. Berkeley & Los Angeles:
> University of California Press. Section on personal pronouns, I do not have the
> page right now, it's a discussion of the third option for first person reference.
> It is different from what you say for Taiwanese, but seems to be related to it.
>