Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ   

Re: Types of possession

From:Paul Bennett <paul-bennett@...>
Date:Friday, December 16, 2005, 23:45
On Fri, 16 Dec 2005 18:19:11 -0500, Jefferson Wilson
<jeffwilson63@...> wrote:

> The Glyphica Arcana has no inflection for possession. Instead, > possession is shown through subordinate phrases ("of . . ."). My > current problem is defining the types of possession used by the GA. > (Though I haven't checked the archives yet, I will be doing that soon.) > > Now, "hand of mine," "house of mine," and "wife of mine" are all going > to be different possessives. What should I call them and what other > forms of possession should I define?
I'd go with the partitive, possessive and associative genetives, respectively. Question for the group: Where would you classify "the king of England"? It flits between possessive and associative in my mind. "Should" is a very broad term when it comes to the design of conlangs. You should define as many as make you happy. I don't know of a book that deals at great length with possession alone. You could check Payne[1] and Comrie[2] for the best treatments I know of. [1]Thomas E Payne, _Describing Morphosyntax_, Cambridge University Press [2]Bernard Comrie, _Language Universals And Linguistic Typology_, University of Chicago Press Paul

Reply

Jefferson Wilson <jeffwilson63@...>