Inalienable possession

With inalienable possession, the two entities have a permanent association in which the possessed has little control over their possessor. For instance, body parts (under normal circumstances) do not change and cannot be removed from their possessor. The following real-world relationships often fall under inalienable possession: Also, languages may make different distinctions within the categories on how many and which entities are treated as inalienable. == Variation by languages ==

Although the relationships listed above are likely to be instances of inalienable possession, those that are ultimately classified as inalienable depend on conventions that are specific by language and culture. It is impossible to say that a particular relationship is an example of inalienable possession without specifying the languages for which that holds true. For example, neighbor may be an inalienable noun in one language but alienable in another. The examples below illustrate that the same phrase, ''the table's legs'', is regarded as inalienable possession in Italian but alienable possession in French: (1b) is ungrammatical (as indicated by the asterisk). French cannot use the inalienable possession construction for a relationship that is alienable. {{interlinear|number= b. |top= French - alienable possession relationship |* La table, quelqu'un lui a scié toutes les pattes |{} the table, someone it.DAT has sawn all the legs |'The table, someone has sawn off all its legs' |bottom= (Cinque & Krapova 2008: 68 (ia, ib))) }} Bernd Heine argues that language change is responsible for the observed cross-linguistic variation in the categorization of (in)alienable nouns. He states that "rather than being a semantically defined category, inalienability is more likely to constitute a morphosyntactic or morphophonological entity, one that owes its existence to the fact that certain nouns happened to be left out when a new pattern for marking attributive possession arose." He considers that nouns that are "ignored" by a new marking pattern come to form a separate noun class. ==Morphosyntactic strategies for marking distinction==

The distinction between alienable and inalienable possession is often marked by various morphosyntactic properties such as morphological markers and word order. The morphosyntactic differences are often referred to as possession split or split possession, which refer to instances of a language making a grammatical distinction between different types of possession. In a language with possession split, grammatical constructions with alienable nouns will differ from constructions with inalienable nouns. There is a strong typological pattern for inalienable possession to require fewer morphological markers than alienable possession constructions. Inalienable possession constructions involve two nouns or nominals: the possessor and the possessee. Together, they form a unit, the determiner phrase (DP), in which the possessor nominal may occur either before the possessee (prenominal) or after its possessee (postnominal), depending on the language. French, for example, can use a postnominal possessor (the possessor (of) Jean occurs after the possessee the arm): In contrast, English generally uses a prenominal possessor (Johns brother). However, in some situations, it may also use a postnominal possessor, as in the brother of John. The possessive morpheme ɛ̃̀ɟ in examples (3a) and (3b) indicates an alienable relationship between the possessor and the possessee. The possessive marker does not occur in inalienable possession constructions. Thus, the absence of ɛ̃̀ɟ, as in example (4), indicates that the relationship between the possessor and the possessee is inalienable possession. Identical possessor deletion In Igbo, a West African language, the possessor is deleted in a sentence if both its subject and the possessor of an inalienable noun refer to the same entity. In (5a), both referents are the same, but it is ungrammatical to keep both of them in a sentence. Igbo uses the processes of identical possessor deletion, and the yá (his), is dropped, as in the grammatical (5b). A similar process occurs in some Slavic languages, notably Serbian: Word order Possessor switch The distinction between alienable and inalienable possession constructions may be marked by a difference in word order. Igbo uses another syntactic process when the subject and the possessor refer to different entities. In (9), the genitive Sely precedes the possessee me, marking inalienable possession. However, the genitive follows the possessee in alienable possession constructions, such as (10) whose genitive Petrus follows the possessee amah. Possessor marking Explicit possessors Another way for languages to distinguish between alienable and inalienable possession is to have one noun class that cannot appear without an explicit possessor. For example, Ojibwe, an Algonquian language, has a class of nouns that must have explicit possessors. If explicit possessors are absent (as in (11b) and (12b)), the phrase is ungrammatical. In (11), the possessor ni is necessary for the inalienable noun nik (arm). In (12), the same phenomenon is found with the inalienable noun ookmis (grandmother), which requires the possessor morpheme n to be grammatical. Prepositions Hawaiian uses different prepositions to mark possession, depending on the noun's alienability: a (alienable of) is used to indicate alienable possession as in (13a), and o (inalienable of) indicates inalienable possession as in (13b). However, the distinction between a (alienable of) and o (inalienable of) is used for other semantic distinctions that are less clearly attributable to common alienability relationships except metaphorically. Although lei is a tangible object, but in Hawaiian, it can be either alienable (15a) or inalienable (15b), depending on the context. Definite articles Subtler cases of syntactic patterns sensitive to alienability are found in many languages. For example, French can use a definite article, rather than the possessive, for body parts. Using the definite article with body parts, as in the example above, creates ambiguity. Thus, the sentence has both an alienable and an inalienable interpretation: Such an ambiguity also occurs in English with body-part constructions. Spanish also uses a definite article (el, los, la, or las) to indicate inalienable possession for body parts. German uses a definite article (die) for inalienable body parts but a possessive (meine) for alienable possession. One subtle grammatical distinction is the postnominal genitive construction, which is normally reserved for inalienable relational nouns. For example, the brother of Mary [inalienable] is normal, but *the squirrel of Mary [alienable] would be awkward. The inalienable possessives are derived from a different deep structure than that of alienable possession. An example is interpretations of the phrase ''John's arm'': In the inalienable reading, arm is a complement of the determiner phrase. That contrasts to the alienable reading in which John has an arm is part of the determiner. For example (1b) to obey those conditions, the pronominal possessor must refer to Lucy, not to another possessor that is not mentioned in the sentence. Thus, by having only one grammatical interpretation, (1b) is consistent with anaphoric binding. On the other hand, the interpretation of alienable constructions such as 1a can be ambiguous since it is not restricted by the same properties of anaphoric binding. ==Cross-linguistic properties==

Although there are different methods of marking inalienability, inalienable possession constructions usually involve the following features: The examples in (22) express the same alienable relationship between possessor and possessee but illustrate the difference between attributive and predicative possession: Requires fewer morphological features If a language has separate alienable and inalienable possession constructions, and one of the constructions is overtly marked and the other is "zero-marked", the marked form tends to be alienable possession. Inalienable possession is indicated by the absence of the overt marker. An example is the data from Dâw. One typological study showed that in 78% of South American languages that distinguish between inalienable and alienable possession, inalienable possession was associated with fewer morphological markers than was its alienable counterpart. By contrast, only one of the surveyed languages required more morphological features to mark inalienable possession than alienable possession. ==Theories of representation in syntax==

Since the possessor is crucially linked to an inalienable noun's meaning, inalienable nouns are assumed to take their possessors as a semantic argument. Possessors to alienable and inalienable nouns can be expressed with different constructions. Possessors in the genitive case like the friend of Mary appear as complements to the possessed noun, as part of the phrase headed by the inalienable noun. Binding hypothesis (Guéron 1983) The binding hypothesis reconciles the fact that the possessor appears both as a syntactic and semantic argument of the verb but as a semantic argument of the possessed noun. It assumes that inalienable possession constructions are subject to the following syntactic constraints: Landau's analysis is made on the basis of several properties possessives in the data case in Romance languages. which takes place when noun phrases referring to inalienable possessions use the definite form and contain no possessive determiner. In sentence (28), "haken", the syntactic object, contains a suppressed possessor in its definite form. It does not contain an explicit possessive marker. In contrast, the English translation contains an explicit possessive determiner, "her", which denote possession. Possessive determiners are obligatory in English for subject-controlled body-part terms. Norwegian treats kinship nouns and body-part nouns similarly in relation to bound variable interpretations. When a definite noun is present, it usually has a referential reading. In (29a), the referential reading is present. However, the presence of definite kinship or body part nouns may also bring about the bound variable reading in which a kinship or body part noun contains a variable bound by the quantifier in the subject, and (29b) may produce both the referential and bound variable readings. With the referential reading, the professors washed a face or father, mentioned earlier. With the bound variable reading, the professors washed their own face or father. Additionally, both kinship and body part nouns behave similarly in sentences with VP pronominalization. VP pronominalization involving both nouns allow for both a referential reading and a "sloppy reading", which involves variable binding. In (29c) in the referential reading, John and Mari wash a face or a mother been mentioned earlier. In the "sloppy reading", John washes his face or mother, and Mari washes hers. Finally, both kinship and body part nouns bear similarities in locality. Both behave in such a way that the definite form of the noun is bound by the closest subject. In (30a), the possessor must be the subordinate clause subject, not the main clause subject. Likewise, in (30b), the father mentioned is preferably the father of the subordinate clause subject referent, not of the main clause subject referent. On the other hand, definite kinship and body-part nouns in Norwegian have a syntactic difference. Definite body part nouns allow a first- or second-person possessor, but some definite kinship nouns do not. For instance, the sentence in (31a) is not allowed as it contains a first-person possessor and kinship term. The kinship term can be used only with a third-person possessor, such as in (31b). However, body part nouns do not have the restriction on first- or second-person possessors like in (32). Form function motivations Inalienable possession constructions often lack overt possessors. and economy explains it by the frequency of possession. Iconic motivation (Haiman 1983) Haiman describes iconic expression and conceptual distance and how both concepts are conceptually close if they share semantic properties, affect each other and cannot be separated from each other. Because the possessor and the possessee have a close conceptual relationship, their relative positions with a sentence reflect that, and there is little distance between them. Increasing the distance between both would in turn increase their conceptual independence. That is demonstrated in Yagaria, a Papuan language that marks alienable possession by a free form pronoun as in (33a). In contrast, inalienable possession constructions use an inalienable possessor that is prefixed on the possessee, as in (33b), a construction that has less linguistic distance between the possessor and possessee than the alienable construction has: However, there are cases of linguistic distance not necessarily reflecting conceptual distance. Mandarin Chinese has two ways to express the same type of possession: POSSESSOR + POSSESSEE and POSSESSOR + de + POSSESSEE. The latter has more linguistic distance between the possessor and the possessee, but it reflects the same conceptual distance. Both possessive expressions, with and without the marker de, are found in the Mandarin phrase "my friend", which is seen in (34a) unlike (34b): In contrast to the previous example, the omission of the marker de is ungrammatical, as in example (35b). The linguistic distance between the possessor and the possessee is much smaller in (35b) than in (35a). It has been argued that the omission of de occurs only in kinship relationships, but phrasal constructions with a mandatory de encompasse other cases of inalienable possession, such as body parts. The following shows the frequency of possession between alienable and unalienable nouns in German. The table below shows the number of times that each noun occurred with or without a possessor in texts from the German Goethe-Corpus of the works of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The alienable nouns above are rarely possessed, but the inalienable kinship terms are frequently possessed. Consequently, inalienable nouns are expected to be possessed even if they lack a distinct possessive marker. Therefore, overt markings on inalienable nouns are redundant, and for economical syntactic construction, languages often have zero-marking for their inalienable nouns. That could be explained by Zipf's law in which the familiarity or the frequency of an occurrence motivates the linguistic simplification of the concept. A listener who hears an inalienable noun can predict that it will be possessed, which eliminates the need for an overt possessor. ==Glossary of abbreviations==

Morpheme glosses Syntactic trees D:determiner DP:determiner phrase N:noun NP:noun phrase PP:prepositional phrase T:tense TP:tense phrase V:verb VP:verb phrase == Other languages ==

Austronesian languages Rapa Old Rapa is the indigenous language of Rapa Iti, an island of French Polynesia in the Bass Islands archipelago. The language structure of Rapa has two primary possessive particles: a and o. The usage of both particles is dependent on the relation between the possessor and the object. When words are categorized by possessive particles, there is a very close resemblance to the usage of the possessive particle and the object's alienability. However, the relation is better defined by William Wilson in his article Proto-Polynesian Possessive Marking. Briefly, through his two theories, the Simple Control Theory and Initial Control Theory, Wilson contrasts and thus better defines the usage of the possessive particles. The Simple Control Theory speculates that the determining factor directly correlated to the possessor's control over the object and emphasises a dominant vs. less-dominant relationship. Old Rapa adheres closer to the Initial Control Theory, which speculates that "the possessor's control over the initiation of the possessive relationship is the determining factor." Here, the Initial Control Theory can also be generally expanded to the whole Polynesian language family in terms of better describing the "alienability" of possession. In the case of Old Rapa, the possession particle o is used to define a possession relationship that was not initiated on the basis of choice. The possession particle a defines possession relationships that are initiated with the possessor's control. The following list and classifications are literal examples provided by Mary Walworth in her dissertation of Rapa. Words that are marked with the o possessive markers are nouns that are: • Inalienable (leg, hand, foot) • A whole of which the possessor is a permanent part (household) • Kinship (father, mother, brother) • Higher social or religious status (teacher, pastor, president) • Vehicles (canoe, car) • Necessary actions (work) • Involuntary body functions (heartbeat, stomach, pupils, breathing) • Words that relate to indigenous identity (language, country) However, Wilson's theory falls short of properly categorizing a few miscellaneous items such as articles of clothing and furniture that his theory would incorrectly predict to be marked with the possessive particle a. The reverse occurs for objects such as food and animals. The synthesis of Wilson's theory and others approach a better understanding of the Rapa language. Svenja Völkel proposed the idea of looking further into the ritualistic beliefs of the community: its mana. That idea has been related to other languages in the Eastern Polynesian language family. It states that objects with less mana than the possessor use the a-possessive particle, and the usage of the o-possessive marker is reserved for the possessor's mana that is not superior. The same usage of the possessive particles in possessive pronouns can be seen in the contracted portmanteau, the combination of the articles and possessive markers. The results are the prefixes tō and tā in the following possessive pronouns, as can be seen in the table below: Wuvulu Wuvulu language is a small language spoken in Wuvulu Island. Direct possession has a close relationship with inalienability in Oceanic linguistics. Similarly, the inherent possession of the possessor is called the possessum. The inalienable noun also has a possessor suffix and includes body parts, kinship terms, locative part nouns and derived nouns. According to Hafford's research, "-u" (my), "-mu" (your) and "na-"（his/her/its) are three direct possession suffix in Wuvulu. • Body parts Direct- possession suffix "-u"(my), "-mu" (your) and "na-"（his/her/its) can be taken to attach the noun phrase of body part. • Kinship terms Kinship terms in Wuvulu language take singular possessive suffixes. Here is a table with the Tokelauan possessive pronouns: ==See also==