Re: Construct state and/or genitive case in Semitic langs

Jim Henry wrote:


| Payne in _Describing Morphosyntax_
| gives an example from Farsi,
|
| Zhon kitab-é
| John book-POSS

Now that's strange. If I can figure out correctly the staff from Farsi
grammar sketch I have, it should be _kitâb-e Jon_, identical with _kitâb-e
sorx_ 'a red book', _kitâb-e man_ 'my book', _kitâb-e xânde_ 'a book that
was read' etc.

| Is this a construct state in Farsi, or a case, or what?

It *is* a construct state. The same sketch calls it _idafah_ (or, bettersay,
_izafet_ in Russian).

| What about when possessed nouns in Finno-Ugric
| languages get personal suffixes; is this related to
| construct state, or is there another general term to cover
| such personal suffixes and the Semitic construct state?

I'm not sure if there is a common term. Turkic langs, having the same
construction e.g. _talebe-nin kitab-I_ 'a student's book' (where -nin is a
Gen. suffix!) or _Madagaskar ada-sI_ 'the island of Madagascar_, call it
izafet. Udmurt grammar sketch (a Finno-Ugric lang) calls it izafet too:
_sovxoz-len mashïna-yez_ 'a car of the state farm'. In Udmurt, the first
member may stay in Genetive or Disjunctive case.

-- Yitzik