Chapter 77: Predicative possession
1. Introduction⇫¶
In this chapter, we study how predicative possession is expressed, following Stassen (2005b). We consider only constructions in which the possessed NP has an indefinite reading, like English John has a horse.
In this study, the difference between temporary and permanent possession, for which languages may have different constructions, is irrelevant, so both types of possession situations are included.
A language may have several predicative possession constructions.
2. The values ⇫ ¶
In this feature we distinguish five constructions types:
| excl | shrd | all | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | Transitive | 48 | 18 | 66 |
 | Comitative | 2 | 14 | 16 |
 | Locational | 2 | 7 | 9 |
 | Genitive | 2 | 5 | 7 |
 | Topic | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| Representation: | 75 | |||
The most widespread pattern of possessive predication in the APiCS languages is the transitive possessive construction (value 1). Here, the possessor is construed as the subject of a transitive verb like ‘have’, ‘grasp’, or ‘keep’, and the possessum is construed as the direct object of this verb. 48 APiCS languages have the transitive possessive construction as their only option. Another 18 languages share this possibility with other construction types (see the following values). APiCS languages with this value are not restricted to specific lexifiers or areas of the world:
Not only creoles, but also pidgins can have a transitive possession verb, as in ex. (4).
In some APiCS languages, there are two different ‘have’ verbs. In Cape Verdean Creole of Brava, for instance, tene expresses temporary possession (see ex. 5a), whereas ten (see ex. 5b) is used for permanent possession.
Similarly, in Principense the transitive verb tê is used with permanent and temporary possession, whereas the intransitive construction sa ki ('be with', see value 2) is exclusively used with temporary possession. In Santome and in Pichi, there exists a similar distinction.
Another option to express predicative possession is the comitative possessive construction (value 2). Here, the possessum is expressed as a comitative ('with') phrase while the possessor is coded as subject (as in value 1) as in ‘I am with a book’. 16 APiCS languages show this pattern, out of which 14 languages are spoken in Africa or on islands close to Africa. For Lingala and Kikongo-Kituba, this construction type is the only one available in the language.
Another 14 languages (e.g. Fa d'Ambô and the mixed language Gurindji Kriol) have the comitative possession construction beside the transitive possession construction.
In Gurindji Kriol the comitative marker is a case suffix:
The next value is the locational possessive construction (value 3), which may show an existential verb. The possessor is expressed as a locational or oblique phrase, whereas the possessum is the subject of the ‘exist’ or ‘be’ predicate, like ‘At me there is a book.’ or 'A book is at me.' Nine APiCS languages show this value. In example (8), the oblique possessor is introduced by the general preposition na ‘to, at, with’:
This construction type is also found in the four APiCS languages spoken in South Asia, of which Korlai and Sri Lankan Malay have it as their only option. However, in these languages, it is not a locational marker, but the dative marker (‘to’, ‘for’) which introduces the possessor NP, as can be seen from example (9).
Even though this dative marker may not be used to express locative phrases, we still subsume it here under locational possessive constructions following Stassen (2005b), in order to keep the WALS and APiCS data comparable.
Languages with value 4 show a genitive possessive construction, where the possessor is coded as genitive modifier of the possessum. The possessum NP is linked to the subject of an 'exist' or 'be' predicate, as in 'My book exists'. Seven APiCS languages have this value, Tayo and Yimas-Arafundi Pidgin being the only two languages which have it as their only possessive construction.
The adnominal possessive construction in Tayo is constructed in exactly the same way: kas pu mwa [house GEN 1SG] 'my house'.
Ex. (11) from Kinubi shows that genitive possessors tend to be topicalized (Morú), so that this construction could conceivably be regarded as topic possession (see value 5).
The last value is topic possession (value 5). Here, the possessor is marked as a topic, and the possessum is the subject of an existential predicate (as was the case in value 4) ‘(As for Peter), there is a knife’, meaning ‘Peter has a knife.’ There are six APiCS languages which show this construction.
In the other five languages, there is no overt topic marking other than the possessor being coded in the leftmost position in the sentence.
3. Substrate influence⇫¶
There are three areas where substrate influence is clearly detectable. First, as mentioned above, the comitative construction is nearly exclusively present in Africa and nearby islands. When we compare the situation with the WALS data (Stassen 2005b), we see that Africa and Australia are two areas of the world where there are many languages with comitative constructions. As the European lexifiers show this pattern only marginally (e.g.Portuguese Estou com fome 'I am hungry', lit. 'I am with hunger'), we can quite confidently invoke substrate influence here. Secondly, all four APiCS languages spoken in South Asia show only or at least to some degree locational marking (see ex. 9 from Sri Lankan Malay). Again, when comparing these data with the WALS patterns, the parallels are striking: South Asia is entirely locational-marking. Thus, the locational marking in the South Asian APiCS languages is due to their substrates. Thirdly, the French-based creole Tayo spoken in New Caledonia has the genitive possessive construction (see ex. 10). Tinrin, one of its New Caledonian substrates, also has this cross-linguistically rare pattern (see Stassen 2005b).