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Re: Possession (was: Re: Ergative)

From:Sally Caves <scaves@...>
Date:Wednesday, October 21, 1998, 20:45
On Wed, 21 Oct 1998, Matt Pearson wrote:

> Use of BE + a dative or locative expression to denote "have" is quite > common. Both Russian and Hindi express "I have a book" as "a book is > beside me". I think the Celtic languages do this as well. So do > Hungarian, Finnish, and Turkish.
A book is with me, in Welsh. I've toyed for a long time with making this a part of Teonaht.
> > What's less common, I think, is having both a BE + dative/locative and > a HAVE construction in the same language (as in Latin and French). >
Teonaht already has a "have" construction, so giving it a BE + dative/locative would, as you say, stretch it into the uncommon even more than it already is. Cool stuff about Tokana snipped... I like the fact that you use so many different constructions to express different forms of having, and this I'm working out, actually, in my own T. Presently, there is a distinction, of course, between possession that is agentive and possession that isn't: Somebody has blue eyes through no willful act of his own, but someone has a house because he's bought it. _aned_ and _harem_. I think the gods, though, should be exempt from all unagentive acts: The gods HAVE (harem, not aned as I have written it) retractible claws because they are gods and have planned everything. Sally ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Sally Caves scaves@frontiernet.net http://www.frontiernet.net/~scaves/teonaht.html Rin euab ouarjo vopy vytssema tohda uo zef: ar al aippara brottwav; ad kemban aril yllefo brotwav fenom; vybbrysan brotwav an; he ad edirmerem brotwav kronom. "A cat and a man are not all that different. Both are on my bed; both lay their head on their arm; both have mustaches; both purr when they sleep." ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++