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All Things Morphology: Its independence and its interfaces
Edited by Sedigheh Moradi, Marcia Haag, Janie Rees-Miller and Andrija Petrovic
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 353] 2021
► pp. 171–198

Chapter 10
Feature-based competition

A thousand years of Slavonic possessives

| Surrey Morphology Group, University of Surrey

Competition takes many forms. A newly identified type of competition involves the featural specification of one of the competitors as a key factor. In the particular instance treated here, whether a given item has a competitor depends on its number (and sometimes its person). We focus on the use of the genitive case versus adjective-like forms in possessive expressions (broadly understood). The data come primarily from the Slavonic languages, where a surprising original system of possessive pronouns competing with personal pronouns has played out rather differently through the family. We find a variety of outcomes, from conservative to highly innovative, with some instances of competitors settling into different niches.

Keywords: possession, genitive, possessive pronouns, possessive adjectives, derivation, Slavonic languages, Russian, Old Church Slavonic, Slovenian, Upper and Lower Sorbian
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Feature-based competition
  • 3.Motivated feature-based competition
  • 4.Unmotivated feature-based competition
  • 5.The nature of the competition
  • 6.The competition in diachrony
    • 6.1A cautionary note
    • 6.2The key developments
      • 6.2.1Word order
      • 6.2.2The N-factor
      • 6.2.3Derivational reforming of the possessive pronoun
      • 6.2.4Loss of the dual
    • 6.3Outcomes in languages where the dual has been lost
    • 6.4Dual preserved: First outcome: Upper and Lower Sorbian
    • 6.5Dual preserved: Second outcome: Slovenian
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 25 August 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.353.10cor
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