Izafet vs non-Izafet genitive patterns in non-related languages

Abstract

The paper deals with the analysis of the specifically marked genitive constructionthe izafetin non-related languages, comparing it with the non-izafet genitive patterns found in the languages of different structure. The phenomenon of izafet is considered typical to Iranian (Persian), Afroasiatic (Arabic), Turkic (Tatar), and Uralic (Udmurt) languages, i.e. in languages with more or less agglutinating morphology. However, we do register non-izafet genitive patterns in some other languages (English, Japanese, Russian, Swahili), representing different language families, which possess the patterns similar to izafet or slightly/radically different. The degree of izafet/ non-izafet characteristics of the languages under study is revealed on the basis of the genitive phrase (GP) models.