Feature GB252: Can predicative possession be expressed with an S-like possessum and a locative-coded possessor?

Patrons: Hedvig Skirgård

Description ⇫

Summary

This question concerns predicative possession, i.e. clauses that express an ownership relation between a possessor and possessum. This feature is concerned with clauses where the possessum is the subject of an existential/locative predicate and the possessor is in an oblique form marked by an element meaning ‘at/in/on’ (e.g. the car is on me to mean ‘I have a car.’ or ‘The car is mine.’). The possessor-NP need not be overtly marked for location, it can be expressed in the verb itself, e.g. with a locative extension. It is necessary for the construction that the possessor is not the subject.

This type of predicative possession construction is known as the ‘locational possessive’ in the work of Stassen (2001, 2013).

Procedure

  1. Find the section on predicative possession.
  2. If no such section exists, search for words like ‘own’, ‘possess’, ‘have’ and ‘belong’.
  3. If there is no information on how predicative possession is expressed in the language, code as ?.
  4. If it is clear that there is a finite verb where the subject is the possessum and the possessor is coded as a location, code as 1.
  5. If there are multiple constructions besides this one to express predicative possession, code 1 for this feature and verify whether any of the other constructions are relevant to GB250, GB253, GB254 or GB256.

Examples

Ket (ISO 639-3: ket, Glottolog: kett1243)

Ket is a language with an extensive case system. The adessive (ADESS) case is used both as a locative marker and to mark the possessor in a predicative possessive construction. The possessive verb is intransitive. Ket is coded as 1 for this feature.

ɔ́bdaŋt         bɔ́gdɔm  úsʲaŋ
ob-da-ŋt       bokdom  usaŋ
father-M-ADESS rifle   be.present
‘The father has a rifle.’ (Nefedov 2015: 169)

Further reading

Stassen, Leon. 2001. Predicative Possession. In Martin Haspelmath, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (eds) Language typology and language universals. 954–960. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Stassen, Leon. 2013. Predicative Possession. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

References

Nefedov, Andrey. 2015. Clause linkage in Ket. Doctoral dissertation. Leiden: Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden.

Stassen, Leon. 2001. Predicative Possession. In Martin Haspelmath, Wulf Oesterreicher & Wolfgang Raible (eds) Language typology and language universals. 954–960. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Stassen, Leon. 2013. Predicative Possession. In Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds), The world atlas of language structures online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.


To display the datapoints for a particular language family on the map and on the classification tree, select the family then click "submit".

You may combine this variable with a different variable by selecting on in the list below and clicking "Submit".

Customize map markers:
0 absent 1105
1 present 249
? Not known 817
reload

Map ⇫


Values ⇫

Name Glottocode Family Macroarea Contributor Value Source Comment