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Types of Possession -- Tesäfköm: A Constructed Language (S11)

From:Thomas Hart Chappell <tomhchappell@...>
Date:Wednesday, December 28, 2005, 21:41
On Sat, 17 Dec 2005 13:20:46 -0500, Thomas Hart Chappell
> <tomhchappell@...> wrote: >On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:46:53 -0500, Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...> >> wrote: >>On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:19:11 -0500, Jefferson Wilson >>> <jeffwilson63@...> wrote: >>> [snip] >> [snip] > [snip] > >... three ideas I remember from T.E. Payne's "Describing Morphosyntax"; > >1) Many languages divide nouns into two types; possessible and non- >possessible. ... > [snip] > >2) Many languages divide nouns into two types; those on the one hand that, >inherently, must be possessed, and those on the other hand that need not, >inherently, be possessed. ... > [snip] > >3) Many languages ... divide types of possession into alienable ... > versus inalienable ... > >4) Many languages use a combination of two of the above three ideas. It is > logically possible, and I think there may exist some natlangs attesting, > all three at once -- I don't know, does anyone else? > > [snip]
Henrik Theiling's conlang Tesäfköm (S11) does embody all three of these ideas. Since he uses "construct-state" instead of "genitive-case", it turns out to be much easier to do. Since Tesafkom is a head-marking language, in the possessor-possessum pair of nouns, it will be the possessum which gets marked, rather than the possessor. 1) A noun which has no "construct states" will be non-possessible. 2) A noun which never has any non-"construct" states -- must be possessed. 3) Henrik gives S11 two construct-states; the alienable one and the inalienable one. ----- I've just timed out. 'Bye. Tom H.C. in MI

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Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>