Alienability as control: the case of Daakaka

• Autores: Kilu von Prince
• Localización: Lingua: International review of general linguistics, ISSN 0024-3841, Nº 182, 2016, págs. 69-87
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The alienability distinction has long been recognized as one of the major factors driving differential marking of possession across languages. But opinions are divided on its exact nature. I will bring evidence from the Oceanic language Daakaka to support the hypotheses that the alienability distinction is not a lexical property of nouns but a property of possessive relations: speakers can choose between different constructions depending on the relation between the possessor and the possessed that they wish to express. Secondly, lexically non-relational nouns can be transitivized to express inalienable relations. And thirdly, the basic semantic notion behind alienable possession is control.