Re: THEORY: genitive vs. construct case/izafe

Hello!

On 7/25/05, Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
> Hi!
>
> "Julia \"Schnecki\" Simon" <helicula@...> writes:
> > > "Julia \"Schnecki\" Simon" <helicula@...> writes:
> > >...
> > >    Modifier-GEN Modified-X  ==  Modifier-X Modified-CONSTR
> >
> > Of course. :-)
>
> Note that I was wrong about the case marking: both systems seem to
> mark the head for the phrases case, sorry for that confusion...
Noted.

> >...
> > > In colloquial German, there is
> > > a similar construction -- so the 3rd persion possessive pronouns seems
> > > common in conjunction with genitive (only Germans colloquial
> > > construction uses dative case):
> >
> > ["dem Vater sein Haus" example snipped]
> >
> > *grins* I had thought of that as well. You're in Saarbrücken, aren't
> > you?
> >...
>
> Yes, but I'm not *from* Saarbrücken.
Yes; you're in but not from Saarbrücken (the animation on your
homepage makes that very clear ;) , whereas I'm from but not in
Saarbrücken. It's a complicated world we live in.

Anyway, you know the dialect and the type of phrase. ;-)

> The examples apply to many
> dialects of German, even colloquial High German, so I did not
> want to restrict them to Saarlandian or (Western) Palatinian.
Colloquial High German too? Wow. So far, I had only encountered this
kind of phrase in High German with a strong dialect "flavor" (what
I've heard being referred to as "High German with stripes" in
Saarlandian); such a strong "flavor" that I wouldn't call them simply
"colloquial" but at the very least "colloquial <insert region/dialect
here>" or even "the <insert region here> idea of High German"...

> (Also, English has it, as I learned on this list.  Very common.)
>
> My own dialect does not frequently use that form, though, so I never
> say that.  More frequently, a construction with 'von' appears ('das
> Haus von meinem Vater') in colloquial version, of my dialect, although
> I tend not to use them too ofter either, I think.
Now that one ("X von Y" instead of genitive construction) I have heard
in variants of German that I'd call "colloquial High German" (and BTW,
I use it from time to time, too).

> > I'm not *in* Saarbrücken right now (haven't been in a long time but
> > will be sometime in August, but I digress); but I'm *from*
> > Saarbrücken, so when I speak German, I tend to use "X sein/ihr Y"
> > constructions rather than the proper genitive, "Xs Y" or "Y des/der
> > X".
>
> Yes, it's very common in dialects around here. :-)
Unfortunately I have no idea how far it extends in any direction. I
just know that a friend of mine, who comes from the far north of
Germany (a few more steps towards the north and he'd be Danish), found
my "dem X sein Y" hilarious the first time he heard it... (Wild
speculation: It may or may not have something to do with the "à moi
(toi, etc.)" that can be added to a French possessive phrase for
emphasis (_c'est mon livre à moi_ "that's MY book [and you can't have
it]"). Gods know we have more than enough French influence in the SW
German dialects...)

> > (Interestingly enough, Hungarian has a similar construction where the
> > possessor appears in dative case: e.g. _a fiúnak a könyve_ (IIRC),
> > lit. "to-the-boy his-book".)
>
> That's exactly it.  Funny.
I wonder how many other languages (and which ones) have this type of
possessive phrase. I used to think it's just a Saarlandian thing (just
as I used to think that V2 syntax was just a German thing until I
encountered Swedish). I do know some languages that express "to have"
with dative case (or a prepositional phrase containing dative, or a
case that roughly corresponds to a dative -- "X is by Y" instead of
"Y has X"), but these languages don't use the same case/PP for
possession ("Y's X" as "X by Y" or some such).

> >...
> > > construction to me.  And in Mandarin, you can say: 'Zhe shi wo de' =
> > > It is *mine*, so also, 'de' is part of the modifier, so this is also
> > > more a 'genitive' construction.
> >
> > Hmm... I remember seeing entries in a Mandarin dictionary that ended
> > in _de_ and were translated as adjectives (along the lines of
> > <wood>+_de_ "wooden", <poison>+_de_ "toxic", etc.)...
>
> The 'de' is the general modifier particle used for many things.  The
> closest in English would probably be: 's .  It is used for relative
> clauses too, and for forming structures that translate as participles.
> So a closer translation would probably be:
>
>   'of wood'   -- noun + modifier particle
>   'poisoning' -- verb + modifier particle
>
> 'de' is a very versatile word in Mandarin.  Here are some other
> examples:
>
>   'wo3 de  cha2'
>   I    MOD tea            - my tea
>
>   'wo3 he1    de  cha2'
>   I    drink  MOD tee     - (the) tea that I drink.
>
>   'he1  cha2 de  ren2'
>   drink tea  MOD person   - (a) person who drinks tea
>
>   'wo3 he1 cha2 de shi2hou4'
>                    time,instant
>                           - (the time) when I drank tea
>
>   'he1 de cha2'           - tea that is drunk
>
>   'he1 de ren2'           - a person who drinks (something)
That certainly clarifies some of the more mysterious entries
containing _de_ in that dictionary... ;-) (And I'm impressed -- what a
versatile word indeed...)

Regards,
Julia

--
   Julia Simon (Schnecki) -- Sprachen-Freak vom Dienst
_@"  schnecki AT iki DOT fi / helicula AT gmail DOT com  "@_
si hortum in bybliotheca habes, deerit nihil
                                        (M. Tullius Cicero)