[Lingtyp] Phonological differences of alienable vs. inalienable possession

[Jess Tauber]

In Yahgan (genetic isolate, Tierra del Fuego) alienable possession is
usually done with a possessive pronoun (such as hau 'our') before the
possessed NP, for example hau' vkvhr 'our house' (apostrophe to separate
vowel-final and vowel-initial forms, v schwa, hr trilled voiceless variant
of alveolar stops found in syllable-final position), whereas inalienable
possession is via suffixes- with -nchi after the possessor, and -n
(generally locative) after the possessed NP (for example Godnchi Makun 'the
Son of God').

Jess Tauber

On Mon, Jan 31, 2022 at 5:26 AM Martin Haspelmath <
martin_haspelmath at eva.mpg.de> wrote:

> Haiman (1983; 1985) was the first to propose a highly general explanation
> of alienability contrasts, but it appears that the generalization is the
> following:
>
> If a language has different adpossessive constructions for inalienable
> (i.e. kinship and/or body-part) nouns and alienable (i.e. other) nouns and
> if the grammatical coding is asymmetric, the coding is shorter for
> inalienable nouns.
>
> "Shorter coding" most often means lack of a marker with inalienable nouns
> (as opposed to presence of a marker for alienable nouns), but it can also
> mean that the marker is shorter, or that the adpossessive person forms are
> shorter (as in the Hungarian contrast between -a and ja, mentioned by Edith
> Moravcsik, or the Italian contrast between mio and -mo, mentioned by Nigel
> Vincent). Haiman attributed the difference to "iconic motivation", but
> frequency-induced predictability ("economic motivation") is probably a
> better explanation (Haspelmath 2017
> <https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/zfs-2017-0009/html>).
> (There was a recent LSA talk by Lelia Glass that confirmed the frequency
> asymmetries that I had observed:
> https://twitter.com/lelia_glass/status/1479083599186075649)
>
> It seems that the generalization above, in terms of "coding length", also
> covers the cases of phonological contrasts that we find (e.g. the contrast
> noted for Ojibwe by Marie-Luise Popp: "In Ojibwe, vowel hiatus is resolved
> via consonant epenthesis in alienable possession, but via deletion in
> inalienable
> possession.")
>
> Martin
>
> Am 31.01.22 um 08:41 schrieb TasakuTsunoda:
>
>                                           2022/01/31
>
> Dear Colleague,
>
>
>
>     The following work may be relevant.
>
>
>
> Haiman, John. 1985. *Natural syntax[:] Iconicity and erosion*. Cambridge:
> Cambridge University Press.
>
>
>
> I don’t have an access to this book now, but if I remember correctly, this
> book discusses morphosyntactic differences between expressions of alienable
> possession and those of inalienable possession. It may discuss phonological
> differences as well.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Tasaku Tsunoda
>
>
>
> 2022/01/28 20:10 に、"Lingtyp (Marie-Luise Popp の代理)" <
> lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org (marie_luise.popp at uni-leipzig.de
> の代理)> を書き込みました:
>
>
>
>     Dear all,
>
>
>
>     I'm looking for languages, in which alienable and inalienable
> possession
>
>     is marked by the same set (or at least - phonologically similar)
>
>     exponents, yet do these exponents undergo different phonological
>
>     processes in alienable vs. inalienable possession.
>
>
>
>     In Ojibwe, for example, vowel hiatus is resolved via consonant
>
>     epenthesis in alienable possession, but via deletion in inalienable
>
>     possession.
>
>
>
>     If anyone knows of more languages of this type, I would be grateful
> for
>
>     references and comments.
>
>
>
>     Best,
>
>
>
>     Luise (Leipzig University)
>
>
>
>
>
>     --
>
>
>
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>
> --
> Martin Haspelmath
> Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
> Deutscher Platz 6
> D-04103 Leipzighttps://www.eva.mpg.de/linguistic-and-cultural-evolution/staff/martin-haspelmath/
>
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