Re: OT: Posession (was OT: Re: What? the clean-shaven)

Tim May wrote:
> If anyone can supply details of a natlang making a more specific
> possessive distinction than this, I'd be very interested to hear of it.
According to the Austronesian Languages section of The World's Major
Languages:

Like most Oceanic languages, Fijian distinguished more than one relation
within what is broadly called "possession".  In standard Fijian there
are four possessive categories.  Familiar (inalienable) possession
includes the relation between whole and part, including parts of the
body, and most kin relations.
...
Edible and drinkable possession, not surprisingly, include the relation
of a possessor to something which is eaten or drunk: na ke-mu dalo "Your
taro", na me-dra tii "Their tea".  Eating and drinking are of course
culturally defined, so that tobacco counts as edible, whereas various
watery foods such as oysters, oranges and sugar cane are drinkable.  The
edible category also includes certain intrinsic properties and relations
of association: na ke-na balavu "its length, his height", na ke-na
tuuraga "its (e.g. a village's) chief".  (This appears to be the result
of the merger of two historically distinct categories, rather than any
conceptual association of such relations with eating.)  The fourth
category, neutral, includes relations not covered by the three more
specific types: na no-qu vale "My house", na no-mu cakacaka "your work"
Certain nouns tend to occur typically with certain possessive types
because of their typical relation to possessors in the real world.  And
there are certain cases of apparently arbitrary assignment: na yate-na
"his liver" [familiar] but na no-na ivi "his kidneys" [edible].
Nevertheless, the system cannot be explained as a simple classification
of nouns.  There are numerous examples of the same noun in two different
possessive relations, with the appropriate difference of meaning: na
no-qu yaqona [neutral] "My kava (which I grow or sell)", na me-qu yaqona
[drinkable] "My kava (which I drink)"; na no-na itukutuku [neutral] "Her
story, the story that she tells", na ke-na itukutuku [edible] "Her
story, the story about her"

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