New Boreanesian Possession Types
| From: | Kristian Jensen <kljensen@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, January 29, 1999, 15:41 |
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After following and responding to the thread on possessability, I
was struck by inspiration and an idea which I've decided to
implement into Boreanesian. The idea is to combine possessability
with inherent-possession.
I already have inherent-possession in Boreanesian. Some nouns are
such that they must be obligatorily possessed by something. These
include body parts, kinship terms, and personal adornment. So it'd
be incorrect to just say "hand" in Boreanesian. One must specify
whose "hand" e.g., "my hand". Below are examples demonstrating this;
INHERENTLY POSSESSED
xepihkih "my head"
xepihtuh "his head" lit. <head of that (person/thing)>
xepih (no meaning)
OPTIONALLY POSSESSED
setinghkih "my animal"
setinghtuh "his animal" lit. <animal of that (person/thing)>
setingh "animal"
All of the above are possessable in the sense that it is not
incorrect for these nouns to be possessed. In addition, I have
'discovered' that Boreanesian has a class of nouns that simply
cannot be possessed, just like in Tupi. These include heavenly
bodies, various natural objects, and natural phenomenons. So in
these words, it'd be incorrect to say "my cloud" for clouds cannot
be possessed by anyone. The example below continues the previous
examples:
NON-POSSESSABLE
seyawhkih (no meaning)
seyawhtuh (no meaning)
seyawh "rain"
What do you guys think? I have heard of languages that combine
in/alienable possession with non/inherent possesssion in a similar
fashion. But I'm wondering if the system outlined above occurs in
natlangs - it seems natural enough although I don't know any
languages that have such a system.
Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)