[Lingtyp] Discourse functions of possessive markers

Sun Jul 21 17:01:24 UTC 2024

Dear Zahra, dear all,

I have not followed the discussion with great attention, but it seems to
me that one interesting case found in several European languages (English,
German, Dutch, Italian, Finnish, etc.) has not been mentioned yet. I will
use English examples for illustration in my demonstration of the use of
the possessive adjective OWN as a focus marker, expressing contrast and
emphasis.

In contrast to the Scandinavian languages, English does not have a
possessive reflexive and can add OWN to a possessive pronoun for
disambiguation:

SWEDISH
Lars tVättar hans bil (L. is washing his (no co-reference) car.
Lars tvättar sin bil (Lars is washing his own car. co-reference with subject)

The use of OWN requires the existence of an alternative to the value of
the following nominal. Otherwise the sence is not well-formed/or
non-sensical:

John lost his (*own) temper. DOn't lose your (*own) head.

Whenever the alternative to the focus value is given in the context or
co-text, the contrast and emphasis is clearly visible. Note that the
alternative must be a function of the focus value:

Ephraim was the dupe of his own scheeming.

We knew that Ellen's daughter had left her husband. Then came the news
that Ellen's own marriage had ended in disaster.

In many of these cases there is not a grain os possessive meaning left:

After her own brief imprisonment she showed more sympathy with the victims
of the regime.

These uses of OWN can be paraphrased by sentences with an adnominal
intensifier following the 'possessor phrase':

After the brief imprisonment of the woman/author herself she showed more...

OWN can be further intensified for emphasis by appropriate expressions:

The following is my own personal opinion. And an example from Italian:

Pacifista radicale, Chomsky resta un aguerrito avversario del SUO PROPRIO
STESSO paese.

If this is of some interest to you you can also read a book chapter I
wrote together with Letizia Vezzosi more than 16 years ago:

Koenig & Vezzosi (2008). Possessive adjectives as a source of
intensifiers. In Seoane, Elena & María, José Lopéz-Couso. Theoretical and
empirical issues in grammaticalization. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

All best,

Ekkehard

> 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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