Chapter 3
The expression of nominal possession
This chapter explores the expression of nominal possession by determining the distribution of variants (possessive adjectives, definite articles, possessive periphrases) and the effects of linguistic predictors. Nominal possession is conditioned by eight linguistic predictors (including semantic category of the genitive noun, type of subject, and distance between referent and possessive). As with the expression of futurity, the same conditioning effects obtain in both speaker cohorts. Structurally and diachronically, findings suggest that the incursion of the possessive periphrasis may constitute a manifestation of the crosslinguistic evolutionary process known as diachronic cyclicity which triggers internal syntactic and morphological adjustments. The findings increase our understanding of language variation and change.
Article outline
- 3.1The Spanish nominal possessive
- 3.2Methodology
- 3.2.1
Research questions and hypotheses
- 3.2.2Predictors examined
- 3.2.3The envelope of possessive variation and the analysis
- 3.3Distribution of possessive variants
- 3.4Internal conditioning effects on the possessive
- 3.4.1Clause-level predictors
- Length of the clause containing the possessive (clause length)
- Distance between the referent and the possessive
- 3.4.2Subject-level predictors
- Location of the possessive
- Type of subject
- 3.4.3Genitive NP-level predictors
- Presence of adjectives in the genitive NP
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Grammatical gender and number of the possessee
- Grammatical person, number, and animacy of the possessor
- Semantic category of the possessed noun
- 3.5Discussion
- 3.6Conclusion
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Notes