[Lingtyp] Phonological differences of alienable vs. inalienable possession

Mon Jan 31 15:30:27 UTC 2022

In my earlier email of yesterday (see below), I stated that for the Hungarian word 'boy', the alienable-inalienable distinction was expressed in all six person-number forms except for the first person plural, where the two forms coincided. However, the examples that I gave contradicted this statement:

fiú-nk 'our boyfriend'
fiu-nk 'our son'

Hartmut called my attention to the discrepancy between the two forms (long versus short u). In response, I said I had indeed made a mistake in giving the form for 'our son': it should have the long ú: fiú-nk, which would have meant there was no distinction between the alienable and inalienable forms.

In response, my Hungarian colleague Ferenc Havas has told me that by saying 'our son' is
fiú-nk (with the long u), I ended up changing the correct form to the wrong one:
'our son' has a short u, in contrast with 'our boyfriend' fiú-nk, which has the long u.

 I agree. This means that alienable-inalienable distinction IS maintained in the first-person plural just as it is in the other five person/number cases. Here is the correct paradigm:

fiú ‘boy’

‘my/your/his… boyfriend’:
fiú-m
fiú-d
fiú-ja
fiú-nk
fiú-tok
fiú-juk

‘my/your/his… son’:
fia-m
fia-d
fia
fi-unk
fi-atok
fi-uk

Ferenc also points out that the distinction between the long and short u is often disregarded in Hungarian colloquial usage. However, in the case of fiú-nk 'our boyfriend' and fi-unk 'our son', it is clearly maintained.

I would like to thank both Harmut and Ferenc for close reading and for letting me know the problems that they have discovered.

Best,

Edith M.

________________________________
From: Edith A Moravcsik <edith at uwm.edu>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2022 5:24 PM
To: hartmut at ruc.dk <hartmut at ruc.dk>
Cc: LINGTYP (lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org) <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Fw: [Lingtyp] Phonological differences of alienable vs. inalienable possession

Sorry, I left off the ' in the 'our son' example. Both forms are

fiú-nk   'our boyfriend' and 'our son'.

Thanks for noticing this error!

Edith

________________________________
From: Hartmut Haberland <hartmut at ruc.dk>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2022 8:48 AM
To: Edith A Moravcsik <edith at uwm.edu>
Subject: SV: [Lingtyp] Phonological differences of alienable vs. inalienable possession

Edith, is there no difference between fiúnk and fiunk in your list? Hartmut Haberland

Fra: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> På vegne af Edith A Moravcsik
Sendt: 30. januar 2022 15:24
Til: Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>; Marie-Luise Popp <marie_luise.popp at uni-leipzig.de>
Cc: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
Emne: Re: [Lingtyp] Phonological differences of alienable vs. inalienable possession

In my message of yesterday about alienables and inalienables in Hungarian, I said the distinction only showed up in the third person singular. There is, however, one exception to this: the word fiú ‘boy’, where the difference is present in all persons and numbers (except for the plural first person, where the two forms are the same).

fiú ‘boy’

‘my/your/his… boyfriend’:
fiú-m
fiú-d
fiú-ja
fiú-nk
fiú-tok
fiú-juk

‘my/your/his… son’:
fia-m
fia-d
fia
fi-unk
fi-atok
fi-uk

Best,

Edith Moravcsik

________________________________

From: Edith A Moravcsik <edith at uwm.edu<mailto:edith at uwm.edu>>
Sent: Saturday, January 29, 2022 2:46 PM
To: Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com<mailto:rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>>; Marie-Luise Popp <marie_luise.popp at uni-leipzig.de<mailto:marie_luise.popp at uni-leipzig.de>>
Cc: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Phonological differences of alienable vs. inalienable possession

Hello Luise,

Hungarian has a few sporadic examples of the alienable-inalienable distinction on nouns.
The difference shows up only in the third-person possessive forms and it is minimal: the marker is almost the same. Examples:

ablak 'window'
ablak-ja 'window of a seller'
ablak-a 'window of a house'

anyag 'material'
anyag-ja 'material sold by a store'
anyag-a 'material that something is made of'

Sometimes the inalienable form shows a difference in the stem:

fiú 'boy'
fiú-ja 'a girl's boyfriend'
fi-a 'somebody's son'

biró 'judge'
biró-ja 'the judge of a town'
birá-ja 'the judge of an issue'

Best,

Edith Moravcsik

________________________________

From: Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org>> on behalf of Guillaume Jacques <rgyalrongskad at gmail.com<mailto:rgyalrongskad at gmail.com>>
Sent: Friday, January 28, 2022 5:59 AM
To: Marie-Luise Popp <marie_luise.popp at uni-leipzig.de<mailto:marie_luise.popp at uni-leipzig.de>>
Cc: LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG<mailto:LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG> <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org<mailto:lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Phonological differences of alienable vs. inalienable possession

Dear Marie-Luise,

In Gyalrong languages, inalienably possessed nouns have almost  the same set possessive prefixes as alienably possessed ones, but present a certain number of morphological differences, see Zhang (2020, p.27++, Le rgyalrong situ de Brag-bar et sa contribution à la typologie de l'expression des relations spatiales : L'orientation et le mouvement associé - TEL - Thèses en ligne (archives-ouvertes.fr)<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftel.archives-ouvertes.fr%2Ftel-03176380&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cb4af603af9ed400d442008d9e3ff86f4%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637791508926171792%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=GFPiBk7pWxNROVcu107J%2FhjYwFQkuyNcVprkFrTQQW4%3D&reserved=0>) on Situ and Jacques (2021: 114++ A grammar of Japhug | Language Science Press (langsci-press.org)<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flangsci-press.org%2Fcatalog%2Fbook%2F295&data=04%7C01%7Cedith%40uwm.edu%7Cb4af603af9ed400d442008d9e3ff86f4%7C0bca7ac3fcb64efd89eb6de97603cf21%7C0%7C0%7C637791508926171792%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=H0E9CtWZtIZZRx2amh5wSN4XZJK%2Bv%2F83QrfzqEPz8Ng%3D&reserved=0>) on Japhug.

Guillaume

Le ven. 28 janv. 2022 à 12:10, Marie-Luise Popp <marie_luise.popp at uni-leipzig.de<mailto:marie_luise.popp at uni-leipzig.de>> a écrit :

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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Guillaume Jacques

Directeur de recherches
CNRS (CRLAO) - EPHE- INALCO

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