[Lingtyp] Discourse functions of possessive markers

Wed Jul 17 20:47:55 UTC 2024

Dear Michael and all,

What you are referring to is similar to the function that is quite common in Ugric and Samoyed 2nd person possessives. Nikolaeva (2003) calls it “linking to the speech setting” which she distinguishes from definiteness. Here are some lines from her work (Nikolaeva 2003: 7):

“The 2nd person possessive has a different function. It may indicate that the speaker
somehow pragmatically associates the listener and the referent of the corresponding noun. […] For example, the Ostyak sentence 15a can be produced when the speaker and the addressee look at several moving cars. The speaker wants to refer to one of these cars and uses the word car with the 2nd person possessive affix, although the car does
not belong to the listener in any way. The reason for using the possessive suffix is that the
speaker intends to call the attention of the listener to the car. Basically the car is “yours”
because “I am talking to you about it”. So the possessive affix indicates that in the
consciousness of the speaker the listener and the car are pragmatically linked.

(15) a. Wanta                      t_m                      mašinaj-en    jowra             m_n_s.       [Ostyak]
            See                          this                car-2SG                      awry              went.3SG
            Look, that car went awry.

[…] they express a pragmatic association between the respective referent and another entity. This apparently creates a special emotional effect for the addressee.”

Nikolaeva, I. 2003. Possessive affixes in the pragmatic structuring of the utterance: evidence from Uralic. In P. M. Suihkonen and B. Comrie (eds.), International symposium on deictic systems and quantification in languages spoken in Europe and North and Central Asia (Collection of papers), 130–145. Izhevsk and Leipzig: Udmurt State University and Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

Best,
Zahra

From: Michael Daniel <misha.daniel at gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, July 17, 2024 8:11 PM
To: Zahra Etebari Shekarsaraei <zahra.etebari at lingfil.uu.se>; list, typology <LINGTYP at listserv.linguistlist.org>
Subject: Re: [Lingtyp] Discourse functions of possessive markers

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<mailto: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

  1.  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

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