Re: New Boreanesian Possession Types

Matt Pearson wrote:
>
>I'll answer your question with another question, preceded by a
>comment:  In English and other languages, possessive constructions
>can be used to denote other kinds of relations besides 'true'
>possession (whether alienable or inalienable).  Depending on
>context, "John's book" could refer to the book that John possesses,
>the book that John wrote, the book that was written about John, the
>book that John was assigned to read, the book that John just
>mentioned in our conversation, John's favourite book, etc. etc..
>As far as I can tell, the expression "John's book" merely denotes
>that the book bears some relation to John, while the exact nature
>of that relation is pragmatically determined.
>
>How does this fact play into the question of possessibility in
>Boreanesian?  In English (as in Boreanesian) it is not possible to
>say "my cloud" with the meaning "the cloud that I possess", but
>this is a product of our real-world knowledge about clouds, rather
>than the result of some grammatical constraint.  It *is* possible
>to say "my cloud" in English if some relation other than possession
>is intended: Imagine two children lying on the ground watching
>clouds.  Each child picks a cloud to watch and reports on its
>shape:  "My cloud looks like a duck" "My cloud just turned into
>dog" etc..  Can you do the same thing in Boreanesian?
>
>I suspect that whereas the phenomenon of obligatorily possessed
>nouns is clearly grammatical (in the narrow sense of the word), the
>phenomenon of obligatorily non-possessed nouns is more a function
>of pragmatics. Any thoughts?
I had a feeling that would be the case, which is why I'm curious as
to how non-possessable nouns in a language like Tupi really works.
Is it truly grammatical or is it just a matter of pragmatics?

If the feature of obligatorily non-possessed nouns is grammatical
rather than pragmatic, then I suppose the situation you presented
with the two children looking at clouds could present itself
differently: Each child picks a cloud to watch and reports on its
shape:  "This cloud I picked looks like a duck" "This cloud I picked
just turned into dog" etc..

As it is now, relationships between nouns are marked by the genitive
in Boreanesian. The way I understand the genitive, it denotes the
idea of "having". Thus, "My cloud..." would mean "The cloud I
have...".  There seems to be a bit of pragmatic feature connected
with this use. I mean, the type of relationship may not be
specified, but a relationship is nevertheless specified. In this
case: "The cloud I have PICKED...".  I suppose it is this pragmatic
feature that does not exist in a language like Tupi with a class of
non-possessable nouns. So the genitive in Tupi probably does not
just denote "having" but rather "possessing". So one cannot say "My
cloud..." in Tupi for it would then denote "The cloud I possess...".
If such is the case, then that must be the same for Boreanesian if
it also has this feature. All this sounds rather restrictive. I like
a bit of pragmatics. So unless I'm wrong about assuming the
restrictiveness of what possessive constructions really mean in
Tupi, I think I'll just stick to having the distinction between
non-inherent and inherent possession in Boreanesian.

Just pouring my thoughts... what about yours?

-Kristian- 8-)