Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Inalienable possession
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
== Variation by languages == Although the relationships listed above are likely to be instances of inalienable possession, those that are ultimately classified as inalienable depend on conventions that are specific by language and culture.<ref name=Heine2>{{cite book|last1=Heine|first1=Bernd|title=Cognitive Foundations of Grammar|date=1997|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=USA|isbn=9780195356205|pages=85–86|url=http://www.myilibrary.com?ID=52858|access-date=6 November 2014}}</ref> It is impossible to say that a particular relationship is an example of inalienable possession without specifying the languages for which that holds true. For example, ''neighbor'' may be an inalienable noun in one language but alienable in another.<ref name=Heine2/> Additionally, in some languages, one entity can be both alienably possessed and inalienably possessed, and its type of possession is influenced by other properties of the sentence.<ref name="Chappell, McGregor" /> Thus, whether a certain type of relationship is described as alienable or inalienable can be arbitrary. In that respect, alienability is similar to other types of [[noun classes]] such as [[grammatical gender]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Matthews|first1=P. H.|title=Noun class|publisher=Oxford University Press|doi=10.1093/acref/9780199202720.001.0001|year=2007|isbn=9780199202720}}</ref> The examples below illustrate that the same phrase, ''the table's legs'', is regarded as inalienable possession in [[Italian language|Italian]] but alienable possession in [[French language|French]]:<ref name="Cinque and Krapova">{{cite journal|last1=Cinque|first1=Guglielmo|last2=Krapova|first2=Iliana|title=The two "possessor raising" constructions of Bulgarian|journal=Working Papers in Linguistics|date=2008|volume=18|page=68|url=http://arca.unive.it/bitstream/10278/1085/1/Working%20Papers%2018-2008%20PDF.pdf#page=60|access-date=7 November 2014|author1-link=Guglielmo Cinque}}</ref> (1b) is [[grammaticality|ungrammatical]] (as indicated by the asterisk). French cannot use the inalienable possession construction for a relationship that is alienable. {{interlinear|number=(1) a. |top= '''Italian - inalienable possession relationship''' |Al tavolo, qualcuno '''gli''' ha segato tutte le gambe |to.the table someone '''it.DAT''' has sawn all the legs |'The table, someone has sawn off all '''its''' legs' }} {{interlinear|number={{hidden text|(1)}} b. |top= '''French - alienable possession relationship''' |* La table, quelqu'un '''lui''' a scié toutes les pattes |{} the table, someone '''it.DAT''' has sawn all the legs |'The table, someone has sawn off all '''its''' legs' |bottom= (Cinque & Krapova 2008: 68 (ia, ib){{efn|Cinque and Krapova are citing Lamiroy (2003). "Grammaticalization and external possessor structures in Romance and Germanic languages", p.259, who is in turn citing Leclère (1976). "Datifs syntaxiques et datif éthique."}})) }} [[Bernd Heine]] argues that [[language change]] is responsible for the observed cross-linguistic variation in the categorization of (in)alienable nouns. He states that "rather than being a semantically defined category, inalienability is more likely to constitute a [[morphosyntactic]] or [[morphophonological]] entity, one that owes its existence to the fact that certain nouns happened to be left out when a new pattern for marking attributive possession arose."<ref name=Heine>{{cite book|last1=Heine|first1=Bernd|title=Possession: Cognitive Sources, Forces, and Grammaticalization|date=1997|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|page=182}}</ref> He considers that nouns that are "ignored" by a new marking pattern come to form a separate noun class.
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)