[Lingtyp] Plural possession

[David Gil]

Dear Matthew,

Great question!  Three interrelated comments:

(1) I would expand on the question by asking, in addition, whether any 
language makes the corresponding distinction also for the singular 
possessee, eg. for 'their drum', between (i) a total of one shared drum, 
and (ii) one drum per person

(2) If you permit periphrasis involving an overt numeral, then I suspect 
many languages with distributive numerals might be able to make the 
following distinctions, which I represent below schematically (since I 
don't currently have access to speakers of any such languages):

(1) THEIR ONE DRUM
     (perhaps vague between one drum per person and one drum in total)

(2) THEIR ONE-DISTR DRUM
     (forcing the one drum per person interpretation)

... and analogously for higher numerals.

(3) Alternatively, in a language with distributive marking on verbs and 
a 'have' verb, you would probably be able to get distinctions in the 
domain of predicative possession such as the following:

(3) THEY HAVE DRUM-SG
     (perhaps vague between one drum per person and one drum in total)

(4) THEY HAVE-DISTR DRUM-SG
     (forcing the one drum per person interpretation)

(5) THEY HAVE DRUM-PL
     (perhaps vague between plurality of drums per person and plurality 
of drums in total)

(6) THEY HAVE-DISTR DRUM-PL
     (forcing the plurality of drums per person interpretation)

Now if such a language also had internally headed-relative clauses, then 
(3) - (6) might also be interpretable attributively, thereby bringing us 
closer to what you are looking for.

Sorry I can't be more specific in terms of actual real-language 
examples.  I suspect the distinction you ask about it quite rare, but I 
wouldn't be ready to give up on the quest quite yet.

Best,

David

On 26/05/2021 18:31, Matthew Baerman wrote:
>
> Dear LingTyp readers
>
> A question for your expertise.
>
> Possession marking systems (possessive pronouns, possessive 
> classifiers, possessed noun marking and the like) can potentially 
> distinguish the number of both possessor and possessed item. For 
> example, in Nuer (Western Nilotic) we have:
>
> bul-dɛ ‘her/his drum’
>
> bul-diɛn ‘their drum’
>
> buɔ̱l-kɛ ‘her/his drums’
>
> buɔ̱l-kiɛn ‘their drums’
>
> An expression like ‘their drums’ does not indicate how the possession 
> is distributed. That is, it would be enough if each person had just 
> one drum, but it would also be ok if each person had multiple drums.
>
> I am not aware of *any* language that makes a systematic distinction 
> here – this is as fine-grained as it ever gets, once everbody’s 
> plural. No language I know of has dedicated expressions equivalent to 
> ‘their drums (but only one drum per person)’ or ‘their drums (each 
> person has more than one drum)’.
>
> Are any of you aware of languages that do make such a distinction?
>
> Thanks!
>
> Matthew
>
> Matthew Baerman
>
> Surrey Morphology Group
>
> School of Literature and Languages
>
> University of Surrey
>
> Guildford, Surrey
>
> GU2 7XH
>
> United Kingdom
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lingtyp mailing list
> Lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/mailman/listinfo/lingtyp

-- 
David Gil
  
Senior Scientist (Associate)
Department of Linguistic and Cultural Evolution
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
Kahlaische Strasse 10, 07745 Jena, Germany
  
Email: gil at shh.mpg.de
Mobile Phone (Israel): +972-526117713
Mobile Phone (Indonesia): +62-81344082091

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lingtyp/attachments/20210526/4e53209c/attachment.htm>