On the concept of possession and possessive constructions: a preliminary insight - Статья

UDC 81-119 ON THE CONCEPT OF POSSESSION AND POSSESSIVE CONSTRUCTIONS: A PRELIMINARY INSIGHT S.D. Gaudio This topic became central to typological linguistics in the second half of the 1990s. Since then quite a few articles and monographs dealing with different aspects of possession and its formal codification in different languages have been published. Besides the earlier, pioneering works of Seiler [8; 9], at least a few monographs are worth of mention: Chappel & Mc Gregor [2]; Taylor [11]; Heine [6] etc. One can certainly agree with Seiler [10, c. 28] that there has been a rapid proliferation in studies on possession over the past decades. In this introductory account on the concept of possession and possessive constructions we are mainly drawing on our own unpublished materials dating back to the second half of the 1990s. We are aware that since then a lot has been written on this subject and that in this paper some claims may appear axiomatic for those typologists working on this and related fields. Nonetheless we intend with this contribution to revise our initial work with the aim of extending in future contributions its original scope and research aim. In this article we are primarily going to introduce the concept of Possession as a philosophical-linguistic category and the terminological question related to it. Some basic grammatical characteristics of possessive constructions and the way languages such as English, German, Italian, Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian express the Possessor - Possessum relation (cf. internal vs. external Possessor constructions) will be also discussed. l. The Concept of Possession Generally speaking Possession indicates a relation between someone who possesses something and the thing he/she possesses. More specifically we can say that possessive constructions describe the relationship between two entities: 1) the possessing entity or Possessor; 2) and the possessed entity or Possessum. According to Seiler [8, c. 1] Possession is fundamental to human life and therefore fundamental to human language. To be able to define the concept of possession is a difficult task for the linguist. In fact he cannot base himself on a solid body of knowledge or doctrines on what possession is, «established by either philosophy or epistemology». Consequently the notion of possession is far from clear, to the extent that many linguists, among whom Weinrich [13, c. 433], deny to Possession a grammatical status altogether. «Possession» is therefore a problematic concept, which is used very differently by different scholars, and often goes undefined. Possession expresses a relation between a human being and his kinsmen, his body parts, his material belongings, his cultural and intellectual products. In a broader sense, one can say that «Possession is the relationship between parts and wholes of an organism» [8, c. 4]. Adopting, as a starting point, Seiler’s characterization, linguistic possession expresses a relationship between a substance and another substance. The former or substance A is called the Possessor and displays the following semantic traits: [ animate], [ human], and more specifically [ Ego], cf. Seiler [10]. Possession is the linguistic expression of the relation between two entities: a Possessor and a Possessum. The kind of relation between the two can be of various sorts cf. Baron et al.[1, c. 4]. One can distinguish three major dimensions of possession: 1) predicative possession; 2) attributive possession; 3) external possession. To the question whether Possession is a universal of language, Seiler [8, c. 11] maintains that linguistic possession presupposes conceptual possession and «in the sense that conceptual possession is presupposed for the expression of possession in all languages, it is undoubtedly universal». In the next section before examining the formal (grammatical) codification of Possession in some major European languages such as Latin, Italian, German and the East Slavic group (Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian), we are going to briefly discuss the notion of «alienable» vs. Cahuilla, Uto-Aztecan) those nouns that are «inalienably» possessed can also be «alienably» possessed. Therefore, concludes Seiler (ibid.): «an adequate theory of Possession must be able to resolve these apparent paradoxes». Finally, it should be underlined that the boundary between «inalienable» / «alienable» is not distinct and permanent as they were two completely distinct class of the lexicon. 3. Possessive constructions In order to express the relationship between two entities: Possessor and Possessum, European languages adopt grammatical/lexical and semantic categories, such as connectors, classifiers, case affixes, locative markers, verbs etc. This semantic-grammatical / lexical relationships are usually defined «possessive constructions». The latter definition is a useful operational instrument for the constructions under consideration. The range of semantic properties to be