Everything about Possession Linguistics totally explained
Possession, in the context of
linguistics, is an asymmetric relationship between two constituents, the
referent of one of which (the
possessor) possesses (owns, rules over, has as a part, has as a relative, etc.) the referent of the other.
Possession may be marked in many ways, such as simple
juxtaposition of nouns, a
possessive case, a
construct state (for example, see
Arabic grammar: state), or
adpositions (
possessive suffixes,
possessive adjectives). For example, English uses a possessive
clitic (
's) and a preposition,
of.
Alienable and inalienable
There are many types of possession, but a common distinction is alienable versus
inalienable possession. Alienability refers to the ability to dissociate something from its parent — in this case, a quality from its owner.
When something is inalienably possessed, it's usually an attribute: for example, John's big nose is inalienably possessed, because it can't (without surgery) be removed from John — it's simply a quality he has. In contrast, 'my briefcase' is alienably possessed — it can be separated from me.
Many languages make this distinction as part of their grammar - typically, using different affixes for alienable and inalienable possession. For example, in
Mikasuki (a
Muskogean language of
Florida),
ac-akni (inalienable) means 'my body', whereas
am-akni (alienable) means 'my meat' . English doesn't have any way of making such distinctions (the example from Mikasuki is clear to English speakers only because there happen to be two different words in English which translate
-akni in the two senses: both Mikasuki words could be translated as 'my flesh', and then the distinction would disappear in English).
Possessive pronouns in
Polynesian languages such as
Hawaiian and
Maori are associated with nouns distinguishing between
o-class,
a-class and neutral pronouns according to the relationship of possessor and possessed.
O-class possessive pronouns are used if the possessive relationship can't be begun or ended by the possessor.
Inherent and non-inherent
Another distinction, which is similar to alienable vs. inalienable possession, is inherent vs. non-inherent possession. In languages that mark this distinction, inherently possessed nouns, for example, body parts, can't be mentioned without also mentioning the possessor. So, you can't say just 'a hand', but must also explicitly say whose hand it is. Several
Papuan languages, for instance
Mangga Buang, combine alienable/inalienable and inherent/non-inherent marking.
Possessable and unpossessable
Many languages, such as the
Maasai language, distinguish between the possessable and the unpossessable. Possessable things include farm animals, tools, houses, family members and money, while for instance wild animals, landscape features and weather phenomena can't be possessed. Basically this means that, in such languages, saying 'my brother' is okay, but 'my land' would be grammatically incorrect. Instead, one would have to use a circumlocution such as 'the land that I own'.
Animate and inanimate
In some languages, different possession verbs ("have" in English) are used depending on whether the object is
animate or inanimate. Compare the two examples in
Georgian:
» Kompiuteri makvs ("I have a computer")
Dzaghli mqavs ("I have a dog")
Since a dog is animate, and a computer is not, different verbs are used. However some nouns in Georgian (such as
car) are considered animate, and, therefore, employ the same verb as any other animate object.
Further Information
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