Re: Antigenetive case?
| From: | julien eychenne <eychenne.j@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Friday, August 9, 2002, 12:31 |
|---|
I sent that this morning, but only too Joe. Sorry :
> Has anyone thought of a case which marks a genetive, but marks it on the
> posessed, not the posessor? I'll make up an example --
> Does this exist in any natlangs?
Yes, nawatl has this feature, even if it's not a genetive case but rather a
posessor prefix. For example, /kal-li/ is "house(s)" (root -kal-), and if you
want to say "my house", the form is /no-kal/. Then, "the woman's house", it is
/i:-kal siwa:t^l/ 'her house the woman', where /i:/ is the 3rd person possessor
suffix (and /siwa:t^l/ is "the woman").
> kathai elom
> cat.AGN(f) 3s.ACC(m)
> cat-of him
> his cat
What I don't understand is why you use an ACC for 3s : maybe a nominative or an
oblique case could do the job here, couldn't it ? It seems to me that there is
no transitive relation between the posessed and his posessor, but I may be
wrong.
Julien.
Replies