13. Possessives with extensive use: A source of definite articles?

Fraurud, Kari

doi:10.1075/tsl.47.14fra

Cited by 82 publications

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“…Himmelmann (1997: §5.3.2) mentions Indonesian and Amharic as further languages exhibiting this phenomenon. Fraurud (2001) discusses the phenomenon extensively, including also Turkish, Yucatec and other languages. She posits several stages of the development of possessive marking into definiteness marking.…”

Section: Evidence From the Evolution Of Definiteness Markingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept Types and Determination

Löbner

2011

Journal of Semantics

105

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The paper offers a systematic account of four basic types of nouns, of four basic types of nominal determination, and of the interaction of noun type and determination type. The four basic noun types are sortal, individual, relational, and functional; they correspond to the four logical types áe,tñ, e, áe,áe,tññ, and áe,eñ on the one hand, and to four types of concepts on the other. The four basic types of nominal determination are singular definite, indefinite (a variety of determinations including simple indefinite), absolute, and relative, where possessive determination is a combination of relative reference and possessor specification. Only inherently unique concepts are available for singular definite reference, only nonunique ones for indefinite use, only nonrelational concepts for absolute reference, and only relational ones for relative use. However, determiners of each type can be combined with nouns of each lexical type: if the type restrictions are not met, the noun is shifted to an appropriate type. On this basis, congruent and incongruent determinations are distinguished. Statistical, typological, and historical evidence is presented that corroborates the hypothesis that incongruent determination is a marked option and involves type shifts of the noun. 2Logical types of nouns: basic distinctions Sortal, individual, relational, and functional nouns and conceptsNouns, including pronouns and proper names, have lexical meanings of different logical types. The four basic types are sortal, individual, relational, and functional:-Sortal nouns are unary predicate terms, of type áe,tñ. They characterize their potential referents in terms of properties. Their meanings are sortal concepts. In a given context of utterance, there may be zero, one, or more entities the noun denotes.Sortal nouns constitute the prototypical subtype of nouns. They occur with all modes 4 of determination; they naturally take adjectives and attributes; they are syntactically simpler in that they do not need complements such as possessor specifications. Sortal nouns include terms for natural kinds as well as for kinds of artifacts, but these are by no means the only lexical subtypes.-Individual nouns are individual terms, of type e. They include proper names and personal pronouns, along with nouns for unique institutions in a context of utterance: pope, US president, Georgia, weather, temperature. Their meanings are individual concepts which assign a unique referent to every appropriate context of utterance.Due to their inherent uniqueness 5 , the default use of individual nouns in argument position is singular definite; plural, indefinite, and quantificational use requires special contexts.-Relational nouns are binary predicate terms, of type áe,áe,tññ. 6 Their meanings are binary relational concepts, involving a further argument in addition to the referential argument. Relational nouns characterize their referents in terms of a particular relation to some other object. Since this object is usually specified by means of a possessive co...

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Section: Evidence From the Evolution Of Definiteness Markingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept Types and Determination

Löbner

2011

Journal of Semantics

105

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“…A secondary function has been assigned to them, often referred to as definiteness-marking function (cf. Gerland 2014, Künnap 2004and Fraurud 2001. While this approach focuses on an important principle of possessive constructions -to which I will refer as accessibility (covered in the following sections) -it also to me implies a possible grammatical change resulting in a double-track application of the suffix, as a marker of possession on the one hand, and a marker of non-possessive functions on the other.…”

Section: Semantics Of Possessive Constructionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Northern Mansi possessive suffixes in non-possessive function

Janda

2015

ESUKA-JEFUL

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Northern Mansi possessive suffixes Abstract. Research on possessive suffixes in Ob-Ugric languages, as in most Uralic languages, has primarily viewed them in the light of their terminological denomination -i.e., as markers of possessive relations, traditionally referred to as their prototypic use. Whenever this onomasiology-based approach fails, the usage of possessive suffixes is considered non-prototypical; a secondary or determinative function of possessive suffixes is cited. In my paper, I will claim that the original function of possessive suffixes in Ob-Ugric languages is not to denote a possessive relation and, in consequence, there is no concept of non-prototypical use. Instead, possessive suffixes denote a relation between two entities, whose default interpretation is a possessive one. I will claim that both, the prototypic and the non-prototypic use is an outcome of the very same property of possessive suffixes, which is to establish reference. In consequence, possessive suffixes play an important role in information structure.

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“…extending them from marking discourse-old to also discourse new information), the different usage types can be arranged on a corresponding scale. For this reason, I refer to the taxonomy of article usages listed in Hawkins (1978) and adopted for possessive suffixes in more recent sources (Fraurud 2001, Nikolaeva 2003, Gerland 2014) in a rearranged order. The main criterion for classification was whether the suffix serves as a means of anchoring or not.…”

Section: Observations Based On the Corpusmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The topic of non-possessive or non-prototypical usages of nominal personal suffixes received increased attention by typological research in the last decades. By combination of comparative and theoretical approaches, new insights have been gained regarding the functions and context features of nominal personal markers in general as well as for particular languages (Fraurud 2001, and Nikolaeva 2003, Gerland 2014. The non-prototypical (non-possessive) occurrences have been generally explained in terms of determination (definiteness marking function).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It aims at a more detailed description of context factors that determine the occurrence of personal markers and at a first attempt to answer the question of how variation in usage can be explained. Further aspects investigated by the liter-ature that have been considered in developing a taxonomy of usages include the question of grammaticalisation (Fraurud 2001, Nikolaeva 2003 as well as the typology of semantic vs. pragmatic factors of usage (Nikolaeva 2003, and, specifically, Gerland 2014.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observations on non-possessive usages of personal markers (possessive suffixes) in Nganasan

Zayzon

2015

ESUKA-JEFUL

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Non-possessive usages of personal markers in Nganasan Abstract. This paper aims at a systematic overview of the non-possessive usages of possessive (relational) suffixes in Nganasan. In the analyzed corpus, the non-anchoring usage types of the 3rd person suffix (including the direct anaphoric and situational usages), are less frequent than relational usages. The distribution of the suffixes suggests that in traditional narratives, the primary topic of the discourse tends to be marked with a deictic (2nd person) and the secondary topic with an anaphoric (3rd person) suffix. The language data also show that in Nganasan, the concept of semantic uniqueness does not suffice to explain the occurrence of the 3rd person suffix as definiteness marker, the topical status of the referent being decisive. Furthermore, predicting the (possessive vs. non-possessive) reading of the relational suffix solely by the conceptual type of the host noun is in case of some lexemes impossible and therefore, contextual information gains crucial importance.

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13. Possessives with extensive use: A source of definite articles?

Cited by 82 publications

References 0 publications

Concept Types and Determination

Concept Types and Determination

Northern Mansi possessive suffixes in non-possessive function

Observations on non-possessive usages of personal markers (possessive suffixes) in Nganasan

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