[Lingtyp] Discourse functions of possessive markers

Wed Jul 17 19:05:14 UTC 2024

And OED cites many examples, including this one from Hamlet (in a
professional conversation between the gravediggers): "Your water is a sore
decayer of your whorson dead body."

Andrew

On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 12:00 PM Nigel Vincent via Lingtyp <
lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:

> For me it works ok with a British accent as well! I think it's
> particularly common with 'typical' as in 'he's your typical conservative
> voter/formal syntactician/ etc' - cf this definition I cam across in an
> online dictionary:
> https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/it%27s+not+your+typical
> it's not your typical definition | English definition dictionary | Reverso
> <https://dictionary.reverso.net/english-definition/it%27s+not+your+typical>
> it's not your typical translation in English - English Reverso
> dictionary, see also 'your actual, at your convenience, at your
> earliest convenience, Bob's your uncle', examples, definition,
> conjugation
> dictionary.reverso.net
> Nigel
>
>
> Professor Nigel Vincent, FBA MAE
> Professor Emeritus of General & Romance Linguistics
> The University of Manchester
>
> Linguistics & English Language
> School of Arts, Languages and Cultures
> The University of Manchester
>
>
>
>
> https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/nigel-vincent(f973a991-8ece-453e-abc5-3ca198c869dc).html
> ------------------------------
> *From:* Lingtyp <lingtyp-bounces at listserv.linguistlist.org> on behalf of
> Randy J. LaPolla via Lingtyp <lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Sent:* 17 July 2024 8:38 PM
> *To:* Michael Daniel <misha.daniel at gmail.com>
> *Cc:* <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org> <
> LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
> *Subject:* Re: [Lingtyp] Discourse functions of possessive markers
>
> Dear Michael,
> Are you thinking of the listing use of “your”, as in the following made-up
> example? (I normally don’t like using made-up examples, but when I tried to
> search for a natural example the results were overwhelmed by the song
> “You’ve got your troubles and I‘ve got mine”.)
>
> What kinds of linguists are there? Well, you’ve got your formalists, your
> functionalists, your cognitivists, your typologists . . .
>
>
> Here “your” could be replaced by “the”, so it does seem to fit what Zahra
> is looking for.
>
> I have certainly heard this sort of thing, but don’t know if it is
> restricted to a particular region, though to my ear it sounds better with a
> Brooklyn accent (as does everything else ;-) ).
>
> Randy
>
>
> On 18 Jul 2024, at 2:10 AM, Michael Daniel via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org> wrote:
>
> Dear Zahra,
>
> I think I heard a variety of American English where "your" was used in a
> very much discourse way, literally on one NP out of three or four. I cannot
> describe the function properly (probably, supporting contact with the
> interlocutor) and cannot place it regionally - maybe native speakers will
> help.
>
> Michael Daniel
>
> --
> Михаил Даниэль
> *Я осуждаю агрессию моей страны против Украины.*
> Michael Daniel
> *I condemn my country's aggression in Ukraine.*
>
>
> вт, 16 июл. 2024 г. в 14:53, Zahra Etebari Shekarsaraei via Lingtyp <
> lingtyp at listserv.linguistlist.org>:
>
> Dear all,
>
>
>
> I am preparing a dataset for development of discourse functions in
> possessive/personal markers cross-linguistically. I am particularly
> interested in constructions (relevant examples below) where a
> possessive/personal marker is used not to convey possession or refer to
> another item, but to denote functions such as definiteness, topicality,
> emphasis or contrast.
>
>
>
> *Definiteness*
>
>    1. Kútip turǵan *adamı* kelmedi.
>                                       [Karakalpak]
>
> *The person* he/she has been waiting for did not come.
>
> (Utepovich 2023: 80)
>
>
>
> *Contrast*
>
>    2. Ulizy-vylizy                kyk
>    bratjos,           *pokći-ez*                                  [Udmurt]
>
>              lived-were.3SG        two
> brothers         *younger.brother-3SG*
>
>              kuaner,                      *byȝym-ez*
>                          uzyr.
>
>              Poor                           *older.brother-3SG*
> rich
>
>              There lived two brothers, the younger one was poor, the older
> one was rich.
>
>              (Serebrennikov 1963: 133)
>
>
>
> So far, I have collected cases from over 60 language varieties spanning Uralic
> (Ugric, Permic, Mari, Mordvin, Samoyed), Altaic (Turkic, Tungusic,
> Mongolic), Indo-European (Iranic), Afro-Asiatic (Semitic), and Austronesian
> (Javanese, Malay) families. If you have encountered similar uses in a
> language you work on or if you are aware of any lesser-known source on
> this topic, especially non-English sources, I would be extremely grateful
> if you could share them with me.
>
>
>
> Many thanks for your time!
>
>
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Zahra
>
>
>
>
>
> References:
>
>
>
> Serebrennikov, Boris A. 1963. *Istoriceskaja Morfologija Permskix Jazykov*
> [Historical morphology of the Permic languages]. Moscow: Izdateľstvo AN
> SSSR.
>
>
>
> Utepovich, Bekbergenov H. 2023. Semantic peculiarities of the possessive
> affixes in the Karakalpak language and their equivalents in English. *Journal
> of Advanced Linguistic Studies*. 10(2). 64-82.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Zahra Etebari
>
> Postdoctoral researcher
>
> Department of Linguistics and Philology
>
> Uppsala University
>
> Thunbergsvägen 3H, Box 635
>
> 75126 Uppsala, Sweden
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> När du har kontakt med oss på Uppsala universitet med e-post så innebär
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> det kan du läsa här: http://www.uu.se/om-uu/dataskydd-personuppgifter/
> [uu.se]
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-- 
I am honored to work on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded land of the
Ohlone people.

Andrew Garrett (he/him)
Professor of Linguistics, Nadine M. Tang and Bruce L. Smith Professor of
Cross-Cultural Social Sciences
*The Unnaming of Kroeber Hall: Language, Memory, and Indigenous California
<https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262547093/the-unnaming-of-kroeber-hall/>*
(MIT Press, 2023)
Director, Survey of California and Other Indian Languages & California
Language Archive
Curator of Sound Recordings, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology
1203 Dwinelle Hall #2650
University of California
Berkeley CA 94720-2650
email: garrett at berkeley.edu
web: http://linguistics.berkeley.edu/~garrett
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