Prominent Internal Possessors

This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive cross-linguistic overview of an understudied typological phenomenon, the clause-level argument-like behaviour of internal possessors. In some languages, adnominal possessors - or a subset thereof - figure more prominently than expected in the phrase-external syntax, by controlling predicate agreement and/or acting as a switch-reference pivot in same-subject relations. There is no independent evidence that such possessors are external to the possessive phrase or that they assume head status within it. This creates a puzzle for virtually all syntactic theories, as it is generally believed that agreement and switch-reference target phrasal heads rather than dependents. Following an introduction to the typology of the phenomenon and an overview of possible syntactic analyses, chapters in the volume offer more focussed case studies from a wide range of languages spoken in the Americas, Eurasia, South Asia, and Australia. The contributions are largely based on novel data collected by the authors and present thorough discussions of the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties of prominent internal possessors in the relevant languages. The volume will be of interest to researchers and students from graduate level upwards in the fields of comparative linguistics, syntax, typology, and semantics. Cover Prominent Internal Possessors Copyright Contents List of abbreviations The contributors 1: Towards a typology of prominent internal possessors 1.1 Definition and challenges 1.2 Languages and sources 1.3 Relevant parameters of variation 1.3.1 The phrase-internal properties of PIPs 1.3.2 Grammatical role of the possessed noun 1.3.3 Functional prominence of PIPs 1.4 Analyses and their implications 1.4.1 Possessors as heads 1.4.2 PIPs with external representation 1.4.3 PIPs with no external representation 1.4.4 Information structure-based accounts 1.5 Concluding remarks and outlook Acknowledgements 2: The syntax of possessor prominence in Maithili 2.1 Introduction 2.2 Background on Maithili 2.2.1 Nominals 2.2.2 Pronominals 2.2.3 Predicate agreement paradigms 2.3 Agreement with a single controller 2.3.1 Single nominative agreement 2.3.2 Single non-nominative agreement 2.4 Double agreement 2.4.1 Primary controller 2.4.2 Secondary controllers 2.4.3 Previous analyses of double agreement 2.5 The grammatical function of secondary controllers 2.6 The role of referential features 2.6.1 Non-possessor controllers 2.6.1.1 First and second person secondary controllers 2.6.1.2 Third person secondary controllers 2.6.1.3 Summary 2.6.2 Possessor controllers 2.7 Non-subject agreement and focus 2.7.1 Focussed non-possessors 2.7.2 Focussed possessors 2.8 Discussion Acknowledgements 3: Prominent possessor indexing in Gurindji 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Gurindji possessive constructions 3.2.1 Case-marking 3.2.2 Indexation of terms and non-terms 3.2.3 Possessive construction types 3.2.3.1 Alienable Possessor Constructions 3.2.3.2 Prominent Alienable Possessor Constructions 3.2.3.3 Inalienable Possessor Constructions 3.3 Potential analysis 3.4 Analysis 3.4.1 Appositional possessors 3.4.2 Prominent internal possessors 3.5 Conclusion Acknowledgements 4: Disjoint and reflexive prominent internal possessor constructions in Chimane 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Background on Chimane 4.2.1 General information 4.2.2 Possessive phrase 4.3 Disjoint prominent internal possessor construction 4.3.1 Morphosyntactic and semantic features of disjoint PIPCs 4.3.2 Towards an analysis of disjoint PIPCs 4.4 Reflexive prominent internal possessor construction 4.4.1 Morphosyntactic and semantic features of reflexive PIPCs 4.4.2 Potential analyses of reflexive PIPCs 4.5 Conclusion Acknowledgments 5: Extended agreement in Oneida (Iroquoian) 5.1 Introduction 5.2 Background 5.2.1 The Oneida language 5.2.2 Oneida pronominal prefixes 5.2.3 The relation between external NPs and verbs 5.3 The structure of clauses that include body part NPs 5.3.1 Three morphological classes of verbs 5.3.2 Is the locative suffix polyfunctional? 5.4 Is there a prominent internal possessor construction? 5.4.1 Absence of formal/distributional evidence in favour of a PIPC or EPC 5.4.2 Semantic licensing of body part NPs with verbs of contact or bodily condition 5.5 Extended agreement in Oneida 5.5.1 External extended agreement 5.5.2 Internal extended agreement 5.5.3 Extended agreement with a body part’s possessor 5.6 Discussion and conclusion 6: Conditions on prominent internal possessors in Turkish 6.1 Introduction 6.2 Preliminaries: Description of the ingredients of PIPs 6.2.1 Body part idioms (inalienable possession idioms) 6.2.2 Converbial suffixes and the availability of disjoint reference 6.3 Agreement with possessor: Prominent possessors 6.4 Analysis 6.4.1 The internal structure of adverbial clauses 6.4.1.1 -(y)Ip clauses are cases of subordination, not coordination 6.4.1.2 -(y)Ip clauses constitute control constructions 6.4.2 The internal structure of body part idioms 6.4.3 PIPs in -(y)Ip clauses 6.5 Further explorations 6.5.1 Why third person marking is not a diagnostic for PIP constructions 6.5.2 The usage of constructions other than idiomatic expressions 6.6 Conclusion Acknowledgements 7: Prominent internal possessors in Bashkir 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Setting the stage: language and method 7.2.1 The language 7.2.2 Data and methods 7.2.3 Possessive and other nominal constructions 7.2.4 Clause-combining in Bashkir 7.2.4.1 General profile 7.2.4.2 The converb in –p 7.3 PIPs in quasi-coordination 7.3.1 Same-subject constraint in quasi-coordination 7.3.2 PIPs: overt vs zero realization 7.3.3 PIPs in main vs dependent clauses 7.3.4 Syntactic role of the possessed nominal 7.3.5 Semantic and pragmatic properties of PIPs 7.3.6 Other prominent non-subjects 7.4 Other clause-combining strategies 7.5 Genitival possessors and constituency 7.6 Conclusions Acknowledgements 8: Proximate possessors 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Possessive constructions in Tundra Nenets 8.2.1 Basic structure 8.2.2 Information structural properties of PIPs 8.3 Non-finite clauses in Tundra Nenets 8.3.1 Converbial constructions 8.3.2 Control relations 8.4 Prominent internal possessors and control 8.5 Prominent internal possessors as a Proximate category 8.5.1 Syntactic distribution of PIPs 8.5.2 Obviation 8.5.3 Obviation in Tundra Nenets 8.5.4 Obviation status and topicality 8.6 The position of PIPs in the noun phrase 8.7 Concluding remarks Acknowledgements References Subject index Language index "This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive cross-linguistic overview of an understudied typological phenomenon, the clause-level argument-like behaviour of internal possessors. In some languages, adnominal possessors - or a subset thereof - figure more prominently than expected in the phrase-external syntax, by controlling predicate agreement and/or acting as a switch-reference pivot in same-subject relations. There is no independent evidence that such possessors are external to the possessive phrase or that they assume head status within it. This creates a puzzle for virtually all syntactic theories, as it is generally believed that agreement and switch-reference target phrasal heads rather than dependents.0Following an introduction to the typology of the phenomenon and an overview of possible syntactic analyses, chapters in the volume offer more focussed case studies from a wide range of languages spoken in the Americas, Eurasia, South Asia, and Australia. The contributions are largely based on novel data collected by the authors and present thorough discussions of the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties of prominent internal possessors in the relevant languages. The volume will be of interest to researchers and students from graduate level upwards in the fields of comparative linguistics, syntax, typology, and semantics." -- prové de l'editor This volume is the first to provide a comprehensive cross-linguistic overview of an understudied typological phenomenon, the clause-level argument-like behaviour of internal possessors. In some languages, adnominal possessors - or a subset thereof - figure more prominently than expected in the phrase-external syntax, by controlling predicate agreement and/or acting as a switch-reference pivot in same-subject relations. There is no independent evidence that such possessors are external to the possessive phrase or that they assume head status within it. This creates a puzzle for virtually all syntactic theories, as it is generally believed that agreement and switch-reference target phrasal heads rather than dependents.0Following an introduction to the typology of the phenomenon and an overview of possible syntactic analyses, chapters in the volume offer more focussed case studies from a wide range of languages spoken in the Americas, Eurasia, South Asia, and Australia. The contributions are largely based on novel data collected by the authors and present thorough discussions of the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties of prominent internal possessors in the relevant languages. 0The volume will be of interest to researchers and students from graduate level upwards in the fields of comparative linguistics, syntax, typology, and semantics