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Noun–noun concatenations can differ along two parameters. They can be compounds, i.e., single words, or constructs, i.e., constituents, and they can have modificational non-heads or referential non-heads. Of the four logical possibilities, one was argued not to exist: compounds of which the non-head is referential were considered to be principally excluded. In this article, I argue that Dutch has compounds with a referential non-head. They resemble the Dutch s-possessive in that their non-heads involve movement to a referential layer. However, unlike the possessive structures, the compounding structure contains head incorporation which results in word-hood. The article further discusses title expressions, such as Prince Charles, which are argued to be referential construct states. Together with the syntactic structure of titles plus proper names, the referential compounds further contribute evidence to the idea that a ban on N-to-D movement for certain uniquely referring roots, such as sun and Bronx, is extra-syntactic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper delineates an alternative analysis of the property concepts of ū 'have' in Taiwan Southern Min, claiming that the complements serve syntactically as the nominal gradabilities through three syntactic (constituency) tests, and supported by a crosslinguistic perspective. Additionally, in the vein of Distributed Morphology, the gradability functions as an nP (also as a nominalization), in contrast with NP/DP. From a typological perspective, it is not peculiar for ū to select a nominalization of property concept to signal a reading of property-denoting. Moreover, I illustrate the semantics of a possessive property concept construction in Taiwan Southern Min, according to Francez and Koontz-Garboden (2015, 2017). I further propose a modal aspectual semantics to interpret the various temporal readings of ū. Finally, I draw a conclusion to my alternative analyses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a comparative syntactic study claims that the possessor of Russian and Hungarian BE-possessives neither originates nor lands in [Spec,VoiceP], the designated structural position of external arguments. It mentions cartographic model, the oblique experiencer of the piacere-type of psych-predicates targets a position higher than canonical. It also mentions BE-existentials differ in the two languages in their clausal architecture.

This paper offers a first systematic investigation of predicative possessive constructions across Western Iranian languages. The notion of possession is conceived as a prototypical domain. It is shown that investigated languages are classified into two major areally distributed groups with respect to predicative possessive constructions: (i) "be"-verb languages, (ii) "have"-verb languages. "Have"-possessives, which originated from "action schema", are argued to have superseded the archaic "be"-possessives, which trigger a non-canonical marking of the possessor argument. However, "have"-verb languages have preserved relics of the older "be"-possessive in some neighbouring domains to possession. In addition, two languages exhibit possession split and are in transition from "be"-possession to "have"-possession: these languages demonstrate the effect of alienability/inalienability in such a split. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The syntactic behaviour of human beings cannot be explained by analogical generalization on the basis of concrete exemplars: analogies in surface form are insufficient to account for human grammatical knowledge, because they fail to hold in situations where they should, and fail to extend in situations where they need to. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we have analyzed the acoustic cues of Spanish stress (duration, amplitude, fundamental frequency) in the possessive mi in order to discover dialect differences between the North and the South of Peninsular Spanish. For this purpose, we have compared the possessives of three towns in the North and three in the South of Spain, using the recordings of the corpus COSER. Results empirically show that the values of duration, amplitude, and F0 in the possessives of both zones are similar, contradicting the literature on the topic. However, in Asturias the possessives have an accent linked to the left periphery and conditioned by the information structure of the sentence. This fact would explain the stressed values in the literature: the possessives in Asturias hold an accent (not stress) in specific positions different to other varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper shows that there is a pattern in the distribution of synthetic (šēp šarrim "the king's foot") vs. analytical (kaspum ša awīlim "the boss's money") genitive constructions in Old Babylonian. The choice depends on the lexical feature of head nouns known as (in)alienability. Old Babylonian kinship and body part terms, as well as some other substantives, are "inalienable", which means they take only the synthetic construction. All other Old Babylonian nouns are "alienable", which means they admit both the synthetic and the analytical construction (kasap tamkārī and kaspum ša tamkārī "the merchants' money"). In the latter case, there is no general rule to predict the choice, yet in certain cases the two constructions display a non-random frequency distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In language acquisition studies, there is a recurring debate regarding how to account for non-target-consistent utterances produced by young children. Anderssen and Westergaard (Lingua 120:2569–2588, 2010) study the acquisition of Norwegian possessives, which may be pre- or postnominal, and find that children overuse prenominal possessives, even though they are considerably less frequent than postnominal ones in the input. The current study investigates Spanish possessive structures, which may also appear with two word orders, and finds that postnominal possessives are occasionally overused by young children, even though they are extremely low in frequency (3%). In this article, we discuss two possible explanations for the non-target-consistent behavior of Norwegian and Spanish children, related to economy of syntactic movement and the nature of the possessives themselves in terms of strong/weak pronouns or clitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that multilingual speakers are influenced by their native (L1) and non-native (L2) grammars when learning a new language. But, so far, these studies have mostly used untimed metalinguistic tasks. Here we examine whether multilinguals' prior grammars also affect their sensitivity to morphosyntactic constraints during processing. We use speeded judgment and self-paced reading tasks to examine the comprehension of German possessive pronouns. To investigate whether native and non-native grammars differentially affect participants' performance, we compare two groups of non-native German speakers with inverse L1–L2 distributions: a group with L1 Spanish – L2 English, and a group with L1 English – L2 Spanish. We show that the reading profiles of both groups are modulated by their L1 grammar, with L2 proficiency selectively affecting participants' judgment accuracy but not their reading times. We propose that reading comprehension is mainly influenced by multilinguals' native grammar, but that knowledge of an L2 grammar can further increase sensitivity to morphosyntactic violations in an additional language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Depressive symptomatology is manifested in greater first-person singular pronoun use (i.e., I-talk), but when and for whom this effect is most apparent, and the extent to which it is specific to depression or part of a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk, remains unclear. Using pooled data from N = 4,754 participants from 6 labs across 2 countries, we examined, in a preregistered analysis, how the depression-I-talk effect varied by (a) first-person singular pronoun type (i.e., subjective, objective, and possessive), (b) the communication context in which language was generated (i.e., personal, momentary thought, identity-related, and impersonal), and (c) gender. Overall, there was a small but reliable positive correlation between depression and I-talk (r = .10, 95% Cl [.07, .13]). The effect was present for all first-person singular pronouns except the possessive type, in all communication contexts except the impersonal one, and for both females and males with little evidence of gender differences. Importantly, a similar pattern of results emerged for negative emotionality. Further, the depression-I-talk effect was substantially reduced when controlled for negative emotionality but this was not the case when the negative emotionality-I-talk effect was controlled for depression. These results suggest that the robust empirical link between depression and I-talk largely reflects a broader association between negative emotionality and I-talk. Self-referential language using first-person singular pronouns may therefore be better construed as a linguistic marker of general distress proneness or negative emotionality rather than as a specific marker of depression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The possessive construction in Mandarin is similar to English prenominal possessives except that maximality is presupposed only for cases involving inherently relational nouns. In this paper, I adopt the hypothesized split of argument and modifier genitives proposed by Partee & Borschev (2001, 2003) and argue that modifier-genitives can occur NP-internally in Mandarin possessives, whose appearance is restricted to cases with non-relational nouns. The discrepancy of the maximality presupposition observed in Mandarin can thus be captured since non-relational nouns can have a split of interpretations between argument and modifier genitives, resulting in a non-maximality reading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship of possessor and possessed in German involve the aspects of the structure and meaning. The aspects of structure in terms of possessive construction are the internal noun phrases (NP) and the predicates used. The possessive constructions of the internal NP show the possessive relationship in German like Ulis Vater, das Dach des Hauses, die Tasche von Katrin and so on, as well as the behavior of the verbs haben and gehören like Eva hat ein Auto and das Buch gehört Ihm. Another interesting thing is to assess the type of possessive relationship based on the construction and semantic aspect, such as ownership, kinship relationship, whole-part relationship etc. This paper is intended to see the possessive relations and their constructions in German. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Split noun phrase topicalization has been the subject of intense studies across languages in the syntactic literature of the last few decades. One of the key questions raised for these constructions is whether they involve syntactic movement or base-generation. This paper explores this phenomenon in two understudied Iranian languages, Gilaki (Northwestern Iranian, Caspien) and Persian. In particular, we explore splits in two contexts, possessive constructions and numeral constructions. We develop diagnostics for distinguishing the two derivational possibilities, movement or base-generation, for the cases under investigation. We show that while Gilaki uses both derivational possibilities, movement in possessor split and base-generation in numeral split, Persian only allows for the latter with very similar behavior. We argue that possessor split occurs when the whole possessum DP/DemP moves out of its base position in a small clause. Numeral split occurs when the NP is replaced by a null nominal element, which is associated with an overt or pragmatic antecedent. We end the paper with a discussion of why an operation, movement or base-generation, is available for one construction but not the other. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper it will be argued that the difference between existential and locative sentences is primarily structurally encoded at the vP/VP level (at the first phase of a derivation). The crucial question is which argument of the verb BE (the Location or the nominal argument ("Theme") is projected as the "external argument", i.e., which argument is the subject of inner predication. In the case of existential sentences it is the Location argument which is the subject of inner predication, and in the case of locative sentences it is the nominal argument. The subject of inner predication becomes by default also the subject of outer predication, i.e., the topic of the sentence. Hence, in the case of locative sentences the nominal argument is the subject of outer predication, i.e., the topic of the sentence, and in the case of existential sentences it is the Location which becomes the topic. (Or, alternatively, the actual topic (the subject of outer predication) might be the situational/event variable, and the Location functions as a restriction on it.) However, the actual arrangement of constituents in the sentences under discussion, as in any other Polish sentence, is determined by the pragmatic/communicative principles. Given this, it is reasonable to think that the NOM/GEN case alternation in negated existential/locative sentences is primarily a matter of syntax, and not one of information structure or scope of negation. The analysis will be modeled in accordance with the phasal model of Chomsky (2000 et seq.). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper focuses on binding relations in the Polish piacere-type psychological verb podobać się 'to please'. In particular, we aim to test the make-up of the argument structure of this verb, which is taken in the literature to be of a double object unaccusative verb (Belletti and Rizzi 1988; Miechowicz-Mathiasen and Scheffler 2008; Jiménez-Fernández and Rozwadowska 2016; a.o.). To this end, we conduct an experimental study, which examines the ability of pre-verbally spelled-out NOM and DAT arguments of podobać się to bind possessive pronouns/reflexives. As a point of reference, we use the results of our previous study on binding relations in Polish double object constructions (DOCs). The study revealed that the higher object, in [Spec;VP], can bind only a possessive pronoun, and not a possessive reflexive embedded in the lower object. The results of our present study display analogous binding relations in podobać się, which provides an argument in favor of the double object unaccusative structure of this verb. Based on our results, we advance a theoretical account of binding in podobać się, which assumes the Index Theory of Binding (Hestvik 1992; Nikolaeva 2014) together with a slightly modified version of a recent analysis of podobać się put forward in Jiménez-Fernández and Rozwadowska (2016). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In this paper, we analyze the expression of subjective and intersubjective stance through a particular class of possessive markers in Central Mongolian. Central Mongolian has two morphologically distinct sets of possessive pronominal markers, and while those used in prenominal position fulfill referential functions, the postnominal possessives convey additional attitudinal meanings. The most subjective form, 1sg.poss min' , and the most polite form, 2sg.hon.poss tan' , are primarily used to express the speaker's affective evaluation of the possessee and retain their possessive meaning. The forms that combine an intersubjective perspective with a lack of deferential politeness, 1pl.poss maan' and 2sg.poss čin' , may dispense with their original possessive and affective meanings and instead be used in an attempt to sponsor a common ground between the interlocutors, either cooperatively (reflecting addressee inclusion) or unilaterally (reflecting implicated higher speaker status from the use of a non-honorific form). In terms of grammaticalization, these forms hint at a cline from the subjective-evaluative 1sg/2sg.hon.poss over intermediate 1pl.poss to the intersubjective, partially epistemic 2sg.poss to the purely discourse-structuring specificity marker n ' 3poss. The subjective forms prevail in poetic texts and the intersubjective form prevails in conversational data, while only n' is compatible with detached registers like law. Highlights • Mongolian prenominal possessives are indexical, while postnominals express attitude. • Postnominal possessives are often reinterpreted as (inter)subjectivity markers. • Subjective markers convey closeness (1sg), deference (2sg.hon) or common bond (1pl). • The intersubjective markers express joint epistemic stance. • These markers can be cooperative (1pl) or authoritative (2sg.non-hon). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I argue that Spanish prenominal and postnominal possessives target different external merge positions focusing on alienable possessive constructions. The analysis is developed alongside a proposal on the organization of DPs, according to which articles are merged as a DP-internal category between the domains assigned to direct and indirect modifiers. Prenominal possessives are determiners reanalyzed from direct modification adjectives whereas postnominal possessives are indirect modification adjectives that arise as predicates of reduced relative clauses. This analysis provides a principled explanation on the behavior of Spanish possessives that is lacking in the generalized idea that they are pronouns with a unique merge position. Arguments are also presented showing that syntax-driven phonological restrictions condition the derivation of DPs. The account successfully derives the core properties of word order variation and related issues within possessive constructions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Italian pair *il luo libro vs. il suo libro ('the his/her book') that is typical of Romance lends itself to an account of the first in terms of constraints also seen in the syntax of compounding, and to an account of the second that links its s-, despite initial appearances, to what we think of as Romance reflexive s-. We might informally call this pair an instance of suppletion, as long as we recognize that calling it suppletion falls short of an account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Linguistica Uralica is the property of Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper inquires into two issues of Hungarian PPs. Firstly, when Hungarian pronouns bear an oblique case, the case marker must be followed by possessive agreement. Secondly, this pronoun-case-agreement order contrasts with the order found in garden variety possessive structures: ordinary possessive DPs feature the order noun-agreement-case. The goal of this paper is to offer an account of these puzzling phenomena. I argue that a PP structure in which PPs are projected from a silent place noun and the Ground is merged as the possessor of place (Terzi 2005, 2008, 2010; Botwinik-Rotem 2008; Botwinik-Rotem and Terzi 2008; Pantcheva 2008; Cinque 2010a; Noonan 2010, and Nchare and Terzi 2014) allows an enlightening analysis of the appearance and position of the possessive agreement in PPs. I also discuss how certain surface differences between PPs and ordinary possessive constructions can be accounted for while maintaining the possessive analysis of PPs. By showing that a PP structure with a possessive core yields a natural account of the intricate Hungarian data, the paper strengthens the case for a possessive-based approach to PPs in Universal Grammar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This chapter discusses referential strategies in Manado Malay (MM), a variety of trade Malay spoken in North Sulawesi, with special focus on how a lexical NP is marked according to the information status of the referent. Like some other Malay varieties, MM uses two strategies to indicate definiteness: articles and the third person singular possessive. The articles are derived from demonstratives and used for direct situational and anaphoric reference, while the possessive is used for reference in which some kind of association is required for identification. An article and a possessive may co-occur in one NP. The semantic domain each form covers is not exclusive to the other but rather belongs to intrinsically different semantic dimensions. Thus, the MM system enables speakers to mark that the referent is textual-situationally accessible and, at the same time, associable to the larger shared situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the relationship between synchronic variation and language change in the context of the existential and possessive constructions in Modern Hebrew, which exhibit a normative – colloquial alternation. The study examines usage patterns across age groups and time periods, as represented in spoken-language corpora. It shows that the non-normative construction is used extensively in the contemporary speech of adults. Moreover, a comparison of the use of the normative – colloquial alternations by two populations, children and adults, in different time periods, provides evidence to suggest that these constructions are undergoing language change. A cross-linguistic perspective lends additional support: across languages the expression of existence involves non-canonical structures, which are particularly susceptible to language variation and, possibly, language change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern Chinese Pseudo-Possessive-Object Constructions (shortened as Modern Chinese PPO constructions; e.g. ta shuo le wo de haohua (他说了我的好话) ‘he has put in a good word for me’ and ta chi le wo de doufu (他吃了我的豆腐) ‘he has taken advantage of me’) are actually constructions displaying possessor-affectee syncretism. They derive from Early Modern Chinese Real-Possessive-Object constructions in bridging contexts, some examples being wo ye quande liewei daren de jiu (我也劝得列位大人的酒), ‘I also urged all the magistrates here to finish drinking your wine’ and shi nage zai jie wo de duan li (是那个在揭我的短哩) ‘who is uncovering my demerits’. Di-transitive constructions in Middle Chinese and Early Modern Chinese (e.g. Changxing! quan er yibei jiu (长星，劝尔一杯酒) ‘Comet! I urge you (to finish drinking) a cup of wine’ and shuru gan jie wu duanchu (竖儒敢揭吾短处) ‘how dare the Confucius scholar uncover my demerits’) have provided structural templates for the formation of Modern Chinese PPO constructions. They also have led to a condition in which there are more examples of a maleficiary Modern Chinese PPO construction than examples of a beneficiary Modern Chinese PPO construction (e.g. ta chi le wo de doufu (他吃了我的豆腐) ‘he has taken advantage of me’ vs. ta shuo le wo de haohua (他说了我的好话) ‘he has put in a good word for me’). The grammaticalization pathway can also explain the formation of other constructions including another Modern Chinese PPO construction (e.g. ta chi le wo de kui (他吃了我的亏) ‘he has suffered the loss caused by me’), a Modern Chinese pseudo-object construction (e.g. wo ganxie ni de haoxin (我感谢你的好心) ‘I thank you for your kindness’), and a Modern Chinese pseudo-modifier construction (e.g. wo pa le yi xiawu de shan (我爬了一下午的山) ‘I did mountain-climbing for the whole afternoon’). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A major goal in the study of the interface between syntax and morphology (understood as part of the PF component) is to understand mismatches between syntactic representations and the corresponding morphological representations. Denominal adjectives in Bulgarian provide one such mismatch. In morphology, they are composed of a nominal component D adjoined to an adjectivizing head F. In syntax, however, the nominal component D behaves like a nominal phrase occupying the specifier of F. Denominal adjectives in Bulgarian thus present both a structural mismatch whereby a syntactic specifier-head relation is mapped to head adjunction at PF and a mismatch between the syntactic and morphological category of denominal adjectives. I analyze these mismatches as the result of a morphological (postsyntactic) operation, which converts nominal phrases into denominal adjectives postsyntactically, as part of the word formation process that combines the nominal phrases with adjectivizing morphology. The proposal is an extension of the theory of the syntax-morphology mapping developed within Distributed Morphology ( Embick and Noyer 2001 , et seq.) on the basis of Marantz’s (1984) Morphological Merger and relies on the implementation of Morphological Merger developed by Harizanov (2014a) in the context of cliticization, itself an elaboration of Matushansky’s (2006) and Nevins’s (2011) proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the properties of Spanish evaluative prenominal possessives (i.e. the affective possessive preceding a proper name, the so-called "emphatic possessive", and the possessive in the Old and American Spanish doubled possessive construction) are thoroughly described, and compared with those of canonical prenominal possessives. It is mainly proposed that evaluative possessives, in contrast to canonical prenominal possessives, are not base-generated as nominal modifiers and then raise to D0, but are directly merged (mostly) within the DP domain, thus capturing the fact that affective, emphatic and doubling possessives just evaluate the relation between the possessum and the possessor, and are not interpreted as complements of the noun. In order to account for their different distribution, it is further argued that the three types of Spanish evaluative prenominal possessives are (basically) inserted in different structural positions in an split-DP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper makes an attempt to explore the extra-linguistic features of some of the modifiers that can function as head in an elliptical nominal group. Those modifiers that are to be studied here are numeratives, adjectives, possessives and quantifiers and they are to be analyzed at the discourse level. In Manipuri nominal ellipsis, an elliptical nominal form is formed by omitting the head noun and making the modifiers as head of that group. The modifiers that become the head of that elliptical nominal group have taken the suffixes having been attached to the head of the non-elliptical nominal group. The elliptical nominal group presupposes the noun that is in the preceding part of the discourse and an anaphoric relation is made between them. The modifiers working at the phrase level are now playing a great role at the discourse level also. As the modifiers have the capacity to become the head of an elliptical nominal group, they become an important part of Manipuri discourse. In such way, nominal ellipsis has become a vital cohesive device used to make a Manipuri cohesive discourse. Because of having such role to make a cohesive discourse, nominal ellipsis has become an inevitable part of the analysis of Manipuri discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a genitive marker, instead of an accusative or a nominative marker, is realized with the first nominal in a multiple case marking (MCM) construction that is relevant to the inalienable possessive structures in Korean, the given sentence may receive an idiomatic interpretation. The nominative possessum within MCM constructions may participate in either preserving or triggering idiomatic interpretations, whereas the accusative possessum may only participate in preserving idiomatic meanings and not in triggering them. With consideration to MCM constructions and passivization which enable idiomatic interpretations to be preserved or triggered compositionally in syntax, we argue that the passive verbal ending (a/e) ci qualifies as the strongest passive marker whereas the overt passive morpheme i/hi/li/ki is the next strongest, and the null passive morpheme ∅PASS the weakest. Hence, we propose that at least within idiomatic domains the null passive morpheme should be regarded as a quasi-passive morpheme which is remarkably different from the overt passive morpheme i/hi/li/ki or the passive verbal ending (a/e) ci. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper examines a type of clausal construction in Chimane (or Tsimane', unclassified, Bolivia) in which possessors which are apparently internal to patient- or recipient-like possessive phrases can control object agreement on the verb. Various aspects of the construction point to an analysis in which the internal possessor is doubled by an external representation or 'proxy' in the clause which mediates the agreement relation between the possessor and the verb. The construction bears some resemblance to external possessor constructions, albeit with the added complication that the possessor itself remains internal to the possessive phrase while its argument function is borne by the external proxy. The paper examines features of the construction and contrasts it with similar or related phenomena which have been identified in other languages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the use of Vedic svá- in the hymns of the Ṛgveda and the Atharvaveda. The aim is to show that one of its main values, together with possession, is intensification. The supporting arguments for this statement are: (a) its high frequency in discursively prominent positions of the stanza, (b) its presence in non-reflexive and non-possessive clauses, (c) its special referentiality in cases of substantivization, (d) the kind of non-reflexive nominal compounds that allows and (e) its presence in pseudo-relative clauses. This work, framed on a typological-functional theoretical approach, helps us to understand comprehensively how the diverse uses of this word are connected along the analysed corpus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the linguistic means used to express predicative possession in the languages of the Circum-Baltic area. The domain of possession is considered here as a prototypically organized domain, where the prototype is the notion of ownership. It is shown that most languages of the area do not provide evidence of splits in their possession systems: rather, they extend the scope of use of their ownership constructions to include all other non-prototypical possessive notions. The linguistic expression of notions that belong to domains neighboring possession, namely experience, location and attribution, is also analyzed. The results show that these notions are rarely coded by means of possessive constructions: exceptions are explained by invoking semantic causes as well as language contact. A comparison of the functions fulfilled by "have"-verbs in the Indo-European languages of the area and by adessive constructions in the Finnic languages is provided, too, and their different scopes of use are explained with reference to their diachronic development and to processes of areal convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Studii de Ştiintă şi Cultură is the property of Studii de Stiinta si Cultura and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates juxtaposed possessives (JPs) in Mandarin Chinese (MC) such as ta baba ‘her/his father’, where a personal pronoun ta ‘(s)he’ is juxtaposed with a kinship noun baba ‘father’ and the two bear a kinship relationship. I assume that a DP is projected in Mandarin nominal expressions and pronouns are Ds while bare proper names are DPs. On this basis, I argue that in JPs, the kinship term is a head taking a pro complement, projecting a Kin(ship)P projection. This KinP is then combined with a D head (a personal pronoun), which agrees in phi-specification with pro. This analysis predicts the absence of proper names and the unacceptability of non-bare pronouns and kinship terms in JPs. In addition, it captures the semantic properties of JPs: directly referential with the pronoun functioning as the anchor of the speech act. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the use of possessive morphosyntax to express modal necessity, as in the English use of have to . We claim that possessive modality constructions arise because both possession and necessity express a relation of inclusion between two arguments of the same semantic type: possession involves a relation of inclusion between two 〈e〉-type arguments, while necessity involves inclusion between sets of worlds. Differences between the two arise from their different syntax: possessive have expresses possession via syntactic transitivity, while modals conceal one argument within the modal head. The similarities and differences are captured within a realizational approach to morphology, in which vocabulary items like have and must are inserted to spell out structures consisting of formal features. The proposal is then extended from have -possession languages such as English to be -possession languages, focusing on possessive modality in Hindi-Urdu and Bengali. We argue that the possessive/modal head can be “applicative-like,” licensing oblique case on an argument that raises to its specifier. This account explains why possessive morphosyntax is uniformly used to express modal necessity, and not other modal meanings: the universal force of elements like have (to) follows from the inclusion relation expressed by possession. Possessive modality thus sheds light not only on the semantics of possession but also on the compositional syntax of modal operators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the syntax and semantics of possessive constructions at the phrasal level in Turkish, namely, genitive-possessive constructions (GP), possessive free genitives (PFG) and possessive compounds (PC). Semantically, the constructions fall into two types based on the argument–modifier relation of the possessor to the possessee ( Partee and Borschev, 2003 ). Genitives in GPs are argumental, while the ones in PFGs are modifiers. PCs also pattern with GPs in that the non-head is a non-referential argument. The relation established between the two nouns in GPs and PCs relies on the lexical properties of the head noun. The relation modifier genitives form with the head in PFGs, on the other hand, is pragmatically defined. At the level of morpho-syntax, the argument modifier split is signaled by the presence or absence of the morpheme POSS, which surfaces only in GPs and PCs. We argue that POSS is a valency marker indicating the introduction of an argument to an NP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author argues on the claims about the presence of determiner phrase layer between English and Serbian grammar. Topics include the differences of the binding possibilities between English and Serbian prenominal possessives, the relations between Bulgarian and Macedonian languages, and the coreferential of English prenominal possessives with R-expression or a pronoun.

Hebrew has two constructions that are used to convey possessive relations: ordinary possession (OP) and possessive dative (PD). PD is most often used when the possessor is perceived as affected by the action or state described in the sentence. This study investigates the possibility that this tendency is gradually diminishing - in other words, that unaffected possessors in PD are in the process of becoming more acceptable. This hypothesis was evaluated in a blog corpus study, which focused on a central correlate of possessor affectedness: whether or not the possessed object was a body part (inalienability). In line with the hypothesis, inalienability had a weaker effect on the choice of construction in younger than in older bloggers. The overall proportion of PD constructions was similar across age groups. This suggests that the change is best viewed as semantic bleaching of PD rather than as a process in which PD is gaining ground at the expense of OP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study represents a typological investigation of additive markers that correspond to English too , also , and as well . It is cross-linguistically common for additives to fulfill a wide range of functions including, among others, scalar additivity, the marking of concessive clauses, indefinite pronouns, association with contrastive topics, and constituent coordination. Based on data from 42 languages from all over the world this paper proposes a list of functions that are commonly expressed by additives and provides explanations for how and why these functions relate to each other. The distribution of these functions and their connections are then interpreted by means of categorical and distance-based semantic maps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a cross-linguistic analysis of the Old and American Spanish doubled possessive construction, in which the possessor is doubly marked in a nominal phrase by means of both a third person prenominal possessive pronoun and a prepositional possessive phrase (su casa de Juan 'lit. his house of John'). This construction is contrasted, in particular, with the French clitic possessive doubling construction (son livre à lui 'lit. his book to him') and the Germanic possessor doubling construction (dem Vater seine Katze 'lit. the father his cat'), showing that the properties of the Spanish structure significantly differ from those of the French and Germanic patterns. A previous view of its typological status whereby the Spanish construction is related to the formal expression of inalienable possession in other languages is further critically discussed, and it is proposed instead that the prenominal possessive in the Spanish doubled possessive construction belongs to the class of evaluative possessives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an English Zulu learners' dictionary that is part of a larger set of information tools, namely an online Zulu course, an e-dictionary of possessives (which was implemented earlier) accompanied by training software offering translation tasks on several levels, and an ontology of morphemic items categorizing and describing all parts of speech of Zulu. The underlying lexicographic database contains the usual type of lexicographic data, such as translation equivalents and their respective morphosyntactic data, but its entries have been extended with data related to the lessons of the online course in order to enable the learner to link both tools autonomously. The 'outer matter' is integrated into the website in the form of several texts on additional web pages (how-to-use, typical outputs, grammar tables, information on morphosyntactic rules, etc.). The dictionary comprises a modular system, where each module fulfils one of the necessary functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three experiments, we investigated the influence of two types of language on memory for object location: demonstratives (this, that) and possessives (my, your). Participants first read instructions containing demonstratives/possessives to place objects at different locations, and then had to recall those object locations (following object removal). Experiments 1 and 2 tested contrasting predictions of two possible accounts of language on object location memory: the Expectation Model (Coventry, Griffiths, & Hamilton, 2014) and the congruence account (Bonfiglioli, Finocchiaro, Gesierich, Rositani, & Vescovi, 2009). In Experiment 3, the role of attention allocation as a possible mechanism was investigated. Results across all three experiments show striking effects of language on object location memory, with the pattern of data supporting the Expectation Model. In this model, the expected location cued by language and the actual location are concatenated leading to (mis)memory for object location, consistent with models of predictive coding (Bar, 2009; Friston, 2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scandinavian is known to have vocative phrases that contain a possessive second person pronoun and a noun, and possibly also one or more adjectives, as in the Norwegian example din lille fjott, which means 'you little dork' although din is formally identical to the possessive pronoun for second person singular. In this paper, I will show that possessive predicational vocatives, as I call them, involve a predication which is parallel to ordinary predicational structures where the noun is marked with an indefinite determiner, as du er en liten fjott 'you are a little dork'. The two constructions are semantically similar and place identical restrictions on nouns. It can also be shown that the pronominal element that appears in the possessive predicational vocative is not actually possessive. On my analysis this pronoun is the combined spellout of a pronominal element that is the subject of the predication and an indefinite element in the predicate. On this point, my analysis is closely related to earlier analyses of the construction, but it goes against analyses that take the noun in the possessive predicational vocative to be the subject of the predication underlyingly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the grammaticalization of agreement markers from possessive pronouns, which has two different dimensions: loss of referentiality (function) and loss of morpho-phonological independence (form). I examine the referential potential and formal expression type of possessive person markers in a worldwide sample of 39 languages with an alienability distinction. Referential potential is measured independently of expression type by applying a new typology of person markers. First, I demonstrate that inalienable possessive marking is at least as referential and formally independent as alienable possessive marking, and often less referential and less independent. Unlike explanations in terms of frequency and iconicity, I argue that this asymmetry is essentially semantics-based: the presence of a possessive relationship is inherent to the meaning of the inalienable noun, which is therefore in less need of expressive marking than alienable nouns. Second, I show that loss of referentiality correlates with loss in form, but in a relative rather than an absolute sense: in individual languages, higher referential markers never show a greater degree of bonding with the possessee than lower referential markers. These results suggest that function and form evolve in the same direction, but need not evolve at the same pace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Speakers of the Turkic variety Caucasian Urum use different strategies for morphologically marking attributive possessive relations. This article presents the results of an experimental study conducted in Tbilisi with the aim of revealing if speakers systematically differentiate in their use of possession markers, and if so, if this is influenced by internal factors such as alienability of the word and complexity of the phrase. Furthermore, the speakers' ages were taken into account. Results showed that in possessive constructions, it is especially the head-marking possessive suffix that is occasionally omitted. Post-hoc analysis showed the unexpected influence of alienability on single NP's possessive marking, even in non-possessive constructions. The results lead to the assumption that the process of constructing possessive phrases is highly influenced by the contact language, Russian. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]