Possession (linguistics)

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Possession, in the context of linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the referent of one of which (the possessor) possesses (owns, rules over, has as a part, has as a relative, etc.) the referent of the other.

Possession may be marked in many ways, such as simple juxtaposition of nouns, a possessive case, a construct state (for example, see Arabic grammar#State), or adpositions (possessive suffixes, possessive adjectives). For example, English uses a possessive clitic ('s) and a preposition, of.

Contents

1 Alienable and inalienable
2 Inherent and non-inherent
3 Possessable and unpossessable
4 Animate and inanimate

Alienable and inalienable

There are many types of possession, but a common distinction is alienable versus inalienable possession. Alienability refers to the ability to dissociate something from its parent — in this case, a quality from its owner.

When something is inalienably possessed, it is usually an attribute: for example, John's big nose is inalienably possessed, because it cannot (without surgery) be removed from John — it's simply a quality he has. In contrast, 'my briefcase' is alienably possessed — it can be separated from me.

Many languages make this distinction in some way. Saying something like 'I have my dad's big nose' with the latter noun-phrase marked inalienable would imply some sort of genetic inheritance; marked alienable, it would imply that you had cut off your father's nose or somesuch and were actually in physical possession of it.

English does not have a grammatical facility to make such distinctions.

Inherent and non-inherent

Another distinction, which is similar to alienable vs. inalienable possession, is inherent vs. non-inherent possession. In languages that mark this distinction, inherently possessed nouns, e.g., body parts, cannot be mentioned without also mentioning the possessor. So, you cannot say just 'a hand', but must also explicitly say whose hand it is. Several Papuan languages, for instance Mangga Buang, combine alienable/inalienable and inherent/non-inherent marking.

Possessable and unpossessable

Many languages, such as the Maasai language, distinguish between the possessable and the unpossessable. Possessable things include farm animals, tools, houses, family members and money, while for instance wild animals, landscape features and weather phenomena cannot be possessed. Basically this means that, in such languages, saying 'my brother' is okay, but 'my land' would be grammatically incorrect. Instead, one would have to use a circumlocution such as 'the land that I own'.

Animate and inanimate

In some languages, different possession verbs ("have" in English) are used depending on whether the object is animate or inanimate. Compare the two examples in Georgian:

Kompiuteri makvs ("I have a computer")

Dzaghli mqavs ("I have a dog")

Since dog is an animate, and computer is not, different verbs are used. However some nouns in Georgian (such as car) are considered animate, and, therefore, employ the same verb as any other animate objects.

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