Talk:Inalienable possession/Archive 1

Archive 1

Older comments

I was reading this page and i became extremely confused. What is this about? (Justie1220 (talk) 16:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC))

Not so sure if Mandarin really makes such a distinction, I'm a speaker, and you can say "wo de mama" without implying that you can disown them. 202.147.43.94 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:52, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

I've heard that Hawaiian language has this, it would be nice to mention it if someone can add sources. – Alensha ^talk 19:22, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Page deficiency

For all its verbiage, nowhere does this article explain what its topic means. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:39, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Folks, even linguists are confused about this topic. There is a semantic notion of inalienability that is more or less universal. Body parts and relatives are the prime examples. Then there are the language particular reflections of this notion. So in many languages words referring to body parts and/or relatives cannot be used without an explicit possessor, but in no language (to the best of my knowledge, and I've been a linguist for over 40 years) does the class of semantically inalienable entities exactly match the class of words/morphemes that must be used with an explicit possessor. To clarify this, some linguists have created a technical term obligatory possession to refer to the linguistic property. I rewrote that article to clean it up, but I haven't gotten around to this one yet. It's a little hard to do because all linguists know about the phenomenon in general but, because of inattention, there cannot be claimed to be a consensus position. If I were to simply write something, it would be dangerously close to original work (although not likely controversial).

If someone gives me the OK I'll do so. (I'm a little gun-shy at the moment. Elsewhere I tried editing a page and got thoroughly blindsided by another editor who thinks that if you undercite your edit should simply be removed. No negotiation. No warning. Just blam -- gone. I don't want to invest in some serious writing and get shot down.) Miiknaans (talk) 07:58, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

As it happens I see that User:Eniagrom did a good rewrite that, even if it doesn't fully cover the topic, makes the thrust clearer. You are certainly welcome to supplement it!

As for that other editor, well, if you were contributing to a biographical article, it is a requirement that material in a WP:BLP be fully sourced. Other articles should also be adequately referenced, and all information given should be available from reliable sources (no opinion/analysis/original material should appear in a Wikipedia article), but (a) ordinarily no one is concerned about whether every noncontroversial assertion has a footnote and (b) if someone felt your material should have been footnoted, the usual response is to put cleanup templates on the page to request documentation, and/or to express concerns on the Talk page. It is true, though, that after a reasonable amount of time, if reasonable objections or concerns haven't resulted in adequate documentation, then an editor can reasonably remove questionable material. —Largo Plazo (talk) 14:05, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

If you don't mind, would you look in my talk for the conversation with Cresix in my talk. I put fully accurate and verifiable information up, but didn't footnote it all. (Most of the facts were about three to four clicks to verify.) He thought that I had skimped on the verifiability. His response was shoot first, ask questions later. I tried to put it back and upgrade it and found myself in an edit war. He did a second delete when I was in the middle of adding the very information he asked for. We then had a discussion in my talk. I'd appreciate your feedback. 99.72.159.146 (talk) 22:48, 6 March 2011 (UTC) Sorry, I forgot that I needed to log in again. This is me. Miiknaans (talk) 22:52, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

OK. I rewrote the whole thing and added examples. It needs more work, but I think it's a little clearer (and I got the requested mention of Hawaiian in). Miiknaans (talk) 01:54, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Oops. I should apologize to Eniagrom. That was a good job for a non-expert. You'll see I've incorporated some of your work, but my attempt to develop a linear presentation distinguishing between the semantic distinction and the language particular morphological/syntactic distinctions ended up trashing a lot of your wordings, even where I incorporated the ideas. Miiknaans (talk) 02:01, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

No need to apologize. I like the direction you've taken with the article. Stylistically, though, I think we should try to maintain normal Wiki structure and introduce the topic generally in one or two short paragraphs, per WP:LEAD, with the rest of the content broken into logical sections. Also, I think we need a strong citation for the Indo-European language examples you've provided. French (which I happen to speak natively) dislikes possessive redundancy and tends to transfer the information semantically to the dative, unlike English (to take your Spanish example, in French we say "je me lave la figure" intead of "je lave ma figure" for "I wash my face"). I have never heard anyone give this phenomenon as an example of an alienability distinction. Furthermore, and not just because of the archaic use of the passé simple, "il ouvrit ses lettres" isn't what I would say -- I would use the definite article here, because contextually it is clear whose letters they must be. In English we tend to emphasize who owns what a lot more than in French. Furthermore, we French *do* use the possessive redundantly in lots of classically inalienable contexts, like "mon père" (my father) and never "*le père" (unless followed by a genetive NP). This really makes me feel like that whole bit probably isn't right.

Thanks for your work on the article, though, keep it up! Eniagrom (talk) 10:43, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Outline/Draft in progress

We are a group of students currently working on a draft of this page in our sandbox. You can access our most current version here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bibliophileb/project

Any feedback you have is much appreciated. We hope to move our draft to the talk page by October 30th, 2014. --Bibliophileb (talk) 16:10, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Syntax/Semantics & Further Directions

Inalienable possession is interesting because there are both syntactic and semantic theories that attempt to account for such distinctions. Anyone reading this page may have noticed that we are focusing on syntactic theories, as we are students in a syntax class. Anyone wishing to expand this article in the future may want to look at some of work in semantics regarding inalienable possession. --Bibliophileb (talk) 19:28, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

Evaluation

[Moved from incorrect location]

The topic of this article is well explained and written. It follows Wikipedia style convention and has references and outside link. Of the 5 people in this group, there is one person doing the majority of work, two people that did some work and 2 that barely contributed judging from the history section of the Wikipedia entry. Recommend the other 4 people to do more as it seems like that one person is carrying the load. Zengc (talk) 02:45, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Peer review: B2

This article is well organized and clearly presented. The overall format is well structured and there is a sufficient amount of information presented. There are a few areas which could use clarification. In the second paragraph of the introduction beginning with “In general”, the notion of a binary class system of alienable versus inalienable possession is introduced but it is said that there is only one type of distinction in regards to possession in English. What type is this? Why is this the case? Is it simply a case of fewer distinctions, as you mention under “No distinction in the grammar”. Even with this lack of distinction there seems to be a contrast present for examples such as the brother of Jake versus the paper of Jake. These examples seem to contradict the notion that there is only one class in English. This type of possession in English could be clarified or elaborated upon. In your first example for Hawaiian there is a typo. It should read ‘Pua’s bones’ (as in the chicken bones she is eating). Lastly, in the last sentence of the first paragraph under the section “Linguistic Properties” it is mentioned that “inalienable possession is associated with less morphology”. This could be expanded upon. Less morphology how? A fewer number of morphemes? Less use of morphemes altogether? It would be interesting to see how this relates to fusional and polysynthetic languages.

Verifiability

In regards to verifiability, the last paragraph under the section “Comparison to Alienable Possession” would benefit from further citation.

Neutrality

In terms of neutrality, a sentence in the first paragraph under the category “Linguistic Properties” reads “In her typological study, Krasnoukhova discovered that…”. Perhaps this could be mentioned as one particular study and worded something like “one such study shows…”.

Quality of research

Information looks to be well researched and easily comprehensible.

Comprehensiveness

May be a typo in the paragraph under the first table, might be perceptual instead of perpetual?? Sentence structure in first lines of the subsection Linguistic properties may need reformatting.

Layout

The article is well structured and laid out. The topics are well covered in each of the subsections and follow a progression of development.

Citations

The citations are correctly displayed at the bottom of the page. There are many citations that allow for a diverse range of sources.

Images

Two Trees are legible and on topic/useful. Table - informational in regards to common relationships connected with inalienability. Provide an example of the DP unit mentioned in “Linguistic properties” and a couple of trees to demonstrate the different construction mentioned in the first paragraph under “ Theories of representation in syntax”

Style

The topic of this article is well explained and written. It follows Wikipedia style convention and has references and outside links.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Maebaran (talk • contribs) 04:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

Great job

You guys are doing an excellent job on this article -- as a one-time editor, I really like seeing how constructive and professional your edits are, it's a real pleasure to see. Keep it up! Eniagrom (talk) 09:04, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Revisions

Group B2 Inalienable possession - Milestone 4

In response to feedback from the peer review, second content meeting, and technical meeting, we have made the following revisions to our Wikipedia article:

Clarity

• We have tried to clarify the discussion on “less morphology” by adding and expanding a separate section on this under cross-linguistic properties.
• Similarly,we have also tried to clarify the distinction of alienable/inalienable possession in English by adding the following explicit statement under “no distinction in the grammar”:
• Although English has alienable and inalienable nouns (e.g. Mary's mother [inalienable] vs. Mary's squirrel [alienable]), there are few formal distinctions of this in the grammar.[18]One subtle grammatical distinction is the postnominal genitive construction, which is normally only used with inalienable, relational nouns. For example, the brother of Mary[inalienable] is acceptable, but not normally *the dog of Mary [alienable].[18]
• We have added explicit explanations to the data so that non-experts could easily grasp the ideas presented.
• It is important to note that in French, when using the definite article with body parts as in the example above, it creates ambiguity between alienable and inalienable interpretations. That is, there could be two meanings: (1) he raises his own hands and (2) he raises another pair of hands (perhaps, a pair of prosthetic hands). The second interpretation leads us to another reading of the sentence above which is about alienable possession, like English, where the eyes are referring to objects that are not a part of his body.[16]

Verifiability

• In the peer review, it was pointed out that some of our sections were lacking citations. For the uncited “variation between languages” section, we have sought out an additional citation so that this information in this section is more verifiable. For the paragraph underneath “comparison to alienable possession”, we have added another citation so it is clear where the information is coming from.

Neutrality

• We have added more theories and different perspectives on inalienable possession. Also, we have tried to add criticisms to these theories.
• We tried to keep the language neutral, such as avoiding adjectives which was mentioned in class, when talking about the different linguists and their theories.

Content/Comprehensiveness

• To make the article more comprehensive, we have added a section on Cross-linguistic properties of inalienable possession. To make this clear how it is different from the specific language data above, we have changed the section heading that was formerly “Linguistic properties” to “Morphosyntactic strategies for marking the distinction.”

Layout

• The language data section has been reorganized. We moved the Hawaiian data, which gets into more specifics of inalienable possession marking strategies, to its own subsection and instead added a clearer, more general example for the “variation between languages” section. Additionally, we reordered the language data subsections so that the more complex discussions of inalienable possession strategies (e.g. definite articles) occur later and more straightforward discussions (e.g. word order)
• We have put our data in tables so that the text boxes and images do not overlap

Images

• As suggested, we have added tree diagrams to clarify the DP structures we discuss, particularly for external vs. internal possession, prenominal vs. postnominal possessors, and attributive vs. predicative possession.

Style

• We have added more internal Wikipedia links throughout the article

Other

• We have fixed typos, particularly those in the Hawaiian data, that were pointed out during the peer review. We have not changed the word “perpetual” under the first table as it is not a typo; what we mean to say is that inalienable possession involves a relationship that is ongoing/permanent.
• Minor wording issues were fixed so that sentence flow is better.
• Style-wise, we have revised the morpheme glosses so the abbreviations are consistent throughout the article and added a table at the bottom of the article that explicitly states what our abbreviations mean. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Abi.manuel (talk • contribs) 03:43, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

French/Italian comparison

Feedback:

1. A non-expert might be puzzled by the French/Italian comparison, since it is not stated in words that the French example is ungrammatical. Many readers will not be conversant with the asterisk convention (or may overlook it), so it might be better to add the (deliberately redundant) information that the French example is ungrammatical (and perhaps explain it in slightly more explicitly).This may be an issue elsewhere (in this and other articles).
2. Bearing in mind that citation is to give due credit as well as for verification, I wonder if the citation for the French/Italian comparison should indicate that it is really a case of Cinque etc. citing Lamiroy citing Leclère. I haven't looked at it closely, though.

--Boson (talk) 14:05, 14 November 2014 (UTC)

1. Thank you for your feedback. This is a very good point, and I have added clarification about it being ungrammatical.

2.This is true and I have added the proper citation. I am not sure if the format is correct, but I now attribute the sentence to the proper source. Any other feedback is much appreciated!--Bibliophileb (talk) 20:19, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

error in French Example

The example in section 2 Variation between languages is wrong. Certainly, attributions of alienability are arbitrary, or rather culture dependant, but the example given contradicts the point made by being wrong, namely that it is not at all ungrammatical French.

• Italian : Al tavolo, qualcuno gli ha segato tutte le gambe.
• French  : *La table, quelqu’un lui a scié toutes les pattes.

Not only is the French sentence correct, but it is plain real and ordinary discourse, as opposed to artificial or "übercorrect" expression, apart from the fact that we do not say "pattes" (legs) but "pieds" (feet) for tables (yes, it is weird, but so is it). Worse, the following sentence, better corresponding to the Italian sentence *literally* and marking the relation of the "feet" to the table, is also correct (and in fact sounds somewhat more natural):

• French  : A la table, quelqu’un lui a scié toutes les pattes.

I have no idea of how making up a really wrong French example. Less so, because the article does not explain why the ungrammaticality of the example is supposed to show a difference in alianability... denis 'spir' (talk)

As a fellow French speaker, I agree with you, I found that bit weird as well, although we probably wouldn't write this, we definitely do construct sentences like this all the time. This article was recently seriously reworked as part of a university course project. Overall, that work has been very good, and a part of it I think was to push for cited examples of linguistic phenomena rather than users simply coming up with examples on their own. A good idea, and one I support in principle, but, as with this cited example, it obviously has its limitations. The problem is that you or I changing it based on our own lingusitic experience would obviously be WP:OR. But then, there is also WP:FALSE. Decisions, decisions. Eniagrom (talk) 23:29, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Untitled

We are a group of university students working on editing this page as part of a course requirement. Here are some sources we plan to use as we edit this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bibliophileb (talk • contribs) 06:59, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Annotated Bibliography

Alexiadou, A. (2003). Some notes on the structure of alienable and inalienable possessors. In M. Coene, & Y. D’Hulst (Eds.), From NP to DP: Volume 2: The Expression of Possession in Noun Phrases (pp. 167-188). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Alexiadou explains the difference between alienable and inalienable possessions by examining semantic, syntactic, and morphological differences between them. Alexiadou explores other scholarly works to show examples of differences between alienable and inalienable possessor constructions across languages, and focuses mainly on Greek. This information is essential to our research because it clearly compares differences between alienable and inalienable possessions. In order to get a full understanding of inalienable possession, we must also understand and compare its counterpart, alienable possession. Alexiadou comes from a scholarly perspective attempting to understand the general trend in differences between the possessor constructions. However, a limitation of this study is that this is a theory and argument of Alexiadou is based on past works, and this may not actually be the reason behind the differences. Overall, this article uses convincing arguments and shows examples relating to semantic, syntactic, and morphological differences that give the linguistics field a step forward in understanding the possessor constructions.

Baauw, S. (1996). Constructions of inalienable possession: The role of inflectional morphology. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 1-12.

Baauw explores Spanish (which he claims to account for Romance languages in terms of inalienable possession), (standard) Dutch, and English to account for cross-linguistic differences in terms of constructions of inalienable possession (CIP’s) and to modify Zubizarreta and Vergnaud’s (Z & V; cited by Baauw) theory about CIP. This study claims to explain the cross-linguistic differences in CIP by exploiting Spec-Head agreement and Head-Head agreement and by asserting the ability of languages to create ɸ-features in D-position. Bauuw’s research is significant for the Wikipedia project because it explores CIP in different languages and tries to account for their differences. In particular, Z & V’s discussion is reviewed: (1) Spanish allows DP-external and DP-internal CIP’s (DP-external meaning, the inalienable possession, eg. a body part, is outside the DP possessor. DP-internal meaning, the inalienable possession is inside the DP possessor); (2) English allows DP-internal only (although DP-external may be acceptable in pragmatically extreme interpretations) and (3) Dutch allows DP-internal only (no DP-externals at all). However, Z & V’s proposal, that if a language allows DP-external, it should allow DP-internal (and vice versa), does not account for Dutch. Baauw manages to better account for DP-internal constructions by proposing that languages can generate ɸ-features in D and that these ɸ-features do not block predicative NP which thus allows the possessor of the inalienable object to be “saturated” (p. 12) by [Spec, DP] (as in DP-internal) or by a dative argument (DP-external). While this study is written to expand another theory and account for its limitations, Baauw could have explained his theories with less complex sentences which could have given his proposals more time to be understood better. Overall, although the paper spent a third of its length into reviewing Z & V’s research, his proposals do achieve his goals of accounting for Z & V’s limitations.

Collins, J. (1985). Pronouns, Markedness, and Stem Change in Tolowa. International Journal of American Linguistics, 51(4), 368.

Collins analyzes the language change in Tolowa with a particular look at alienable and inalienable possession. He argues that the loss of alienable/inalienable possession which is being seen in Tolowa is derived from a Oregon Athapaskan base and it is not a language loss but a dialect change. Collins’ work is beneficial to our Wikipedia project as it is an interesting case of a change in possession indication. Collins also compares Tolowa to other related languages, giving a good overview of how different languages handle alienable and inalienable possession. This article is written in a narrow focus, only looking at languages of the Oregon Athapaskan subgroup. A shortcoming of this work would be that it is not a full picture of the dialect change as Collins says that “inconsistent assimilation suggests that the process is not complete”. It would be beneficial to look into more recent work done by Collins on Tolowa to see if he has discovered more evidence for the dialect shift.

Freeze, R. A. (1978). Possession in K’Ekchi’ (Maya). International Journal of American Linguistics 42(2), 255-266.

Inalienable nouns presuppose the presence of a possessor noun while alienable nouns are largely independent of the possessor. The nouns in this language are not limited to either category; however, they are inflected with prefixes indicating possessive and a special suffix to indicate they are inalienable nouns. Interestingly, the paper looks at movement like wh- questions and how possession plays in this transformation. The paper provides important insights into affix marking in the possessive and also a brief overview about the other ways possession is demonstrated in K’Ekhci. The paper goes further in that it looks at how inalienable possession is used in speech such as compound words and tries to link the instances of K’Ekchi’ to the broader Mayan language family. It was written by someone who has extensive knowledge of Guatemalan languages and has references previous work on other syntactic analysis of K’Ehchi’. This paper was written more as a compiled work on the Mayan possessive rather than analysis on new findings in this language. A shortcomings of the work is that this paper looks at overall possession in K’Ekchi’, so the amount of detail devoted to our particular topic of inalienable possessive may be insufficient to the project. Nevertheless, it does offer a simple summary in the context of general possession in Mayan. In brief, the paper is a good start in positioning our group within general research and observations on possession.

Hyman, L., Alford, D. K., & Akpati, E. (1970). Inalienable possession in Igbo. Journal of Western African Language, 7(2), 85-101.

The paper looks at relational concepts, which include body parts, directional, and kinship terms; and in contrast to non-relational concepts, these concepts must belong to someone. The inalienable possessions in Igbo are syntactically marked and observe two processes: the possessor of the noun is deleted when the referent is in the same sentence or the possessor in placed by the verb when the referent of the possessive is not in the same sentence. The paper in particular looks at body parts and how these syntactic processes inform the listener that the body part is still attached to the owner. This work is written in a comprehensive approach that hopes to briefly go over several syntactic phenomena that helps achieve inalienable possession. Inalienable possession in Igbo seems to be a topic that has not been extensively studied because there are several references to French, a better known instance of inalienable possession. Therefore, this paper offers detailed explanations on syntactic processes in an unfamiliar language. It also demonstrates several ways the inalienable possessive is syntactically marked in Igbo such as possessor deletion, possessor switch and emphasis. However, one of the paper’s limitation is that there are lingering problems to the analysis as shown in the additional problems section which may have been further researched by more recent studies. Overall, the paper was straightforward and offers many examples of the different processes inalienable possession undergoes in Igbo. The paper also welcomes more analysis into their study.

Kempchinsky, P. (1992). Syntactic constraints on the expression of possession in Spanish. Hispania, 75(3), 697-704.

Kempchinsky examines inalienable possession primarily (but not exclusively) to show that possessive adjectives, reflexives (dative clitics) and non-phonologically overt morphemes are systematically linked. In doing so, inalienable possession is elucidated in detail to provide data for the goal. This study is significant because it brings together studies of Romance languages together and uses theories from other studies to aid its purpose. A specific contribution to the Wikipedia page would be the idea that the possessor c-commands the inalienable NP involved (eg. body part)--an agreement that most research on Romance languages have in common. It is proposed that there is an empty anaphor with the direct object and together, are c-commanded by the possessor which allows the anaphor to meet the requirement imposed by Binding Theory. Furthermore, if the body part NP is modified by a non-restrictive descriptive adjective, inalienable possession seems to be blocked while, on the other hand, if the body part NP is modified by a restrictive descriptive adjective, inalienable possession is not blocked and is possible. This study is heavily reliant on the assumption that the readers are well acquainted with Spanish (ie. there are no English glosses). Another shortcoming would be how the study pertains mainly to (generalizing) Romance languages. Kempchinsky wrote this study in a very straight-forward manner and did not spend time on other theories or ideas that she cannot explain; the author merely stated that such concepts are out of the scope of the research.

Kliffer, M. D. (1984). Interpenetration of linguistic levels: French inalienable possession. Lingua, 62(3), 187-208.

Kliffer looks at inalienable possession in French across linguistic levels, in syntax, semantics and pragmatics arguing that it is a source for other processes and can only be understood if we examine all three levels. In syntax we will see that inalienable possession structures are in complementary distribution. Kliffer argues that within semantics it assumes that a speaker will always have a choice when given an option between something similar to “La tete lui tournait” vs. “Ses mains etaient comme deux rasoirs” and the decision will have semantic effects, note: the second option is ungrammatical. The pragmatic argument Kliffer takes from Garcia (1975) who states that in Spanish there is no morphology that signals inalienable possession because there is no morphology to signal the inalienable possession. Kliffer argues that this would apply to French as well. This article is very helpful as it provides a look at inalienable possession through three different lenses, syntax, semantics and pragmatics, it will help us to write a comprehensive article on the topic. The article provides a lot of data to completely show the arguments for all of the different levels even including a questionnaire. The article is biased to French, it will be advantageous to compare how inalienable possession is understood through French with how it is understood in English and other languages to provide a cross linguistic view.

Kockelman, P. (2009). Inalienable possession as grammatical category and discourse pattern. Studies in Language, 33(1), 25-68. doi:10.1075/sl.33.1.03koc

Kockelman examines the grammatical category and discourse pattern of inalienable possession by looking at morphosyntactic forms, semantic features, pragmatic functions, and discourse frequencies of Q’eqchi’-Maya. Kockelman argues that there are two criteria motivating inalienable possession: whatever any person is strongly presumed to possess, and whatever those personal possessions are frequently referred to. Kockelman further argues that inalienable possessions are similar to deictics and prepositions in that they encode the possession’s relation to the possessor, except it differs to deictics and prepositions in that the possessor is a person and the possession is its parts or relation. This article is important to our research because it compares to the studies done in Q’eqchi’-Maya from earlier in the 1970’s. It also introduces new theories of motivation of inalienable possession, and how it is related to deictics and prepositions. Kockelman has published multiple articles on inalienable possession in the Q’eqchi’-Maya language for the past decade, and seems to be a reliable, scholarly source. However, the article focuses only on data for Q’eqchi’-Maya, and more research would need to be done to see if these theories Kockelman proposes hold true universally across all languages. Nevertheless, the article holds strong arguments and examples through data sets of Q’eqchi’-Maya which give us a solid starting point in our research.

Krasnoukhova, O. (2011). Attributive possession in the languages of South America. Linguistics in the Netherlands, 28(1), 86-98. doi:10.1075/avt.28.08kra

Krasnoukhova explores various strategies for marking-possession in South American languages and examines the geographical distribution of these strategies. She argues that although there are many different ways to mark alienable possession, including morphology, tonal patterns, and word order, the construction of pronominal possessors (e.g. his) is largely the same as the construction of nominal possessors (e.g. John’s) in South American languages. Additionally, she provides robust support for the hypothesis that inalienable possession usually requires fewer morphosyntactic markers than alienable possession constructions. This article is integral to our project because it provides a useful overview of possession-marking strategies; these will be useful in providing a basis for what inalienable possession is and how it can be expressed. Krasnoukhova primarily takes a broad, cross-linguistic perspective. A shortcoming of this work is that no reason is given for Krasnoukhova’s intriguing statement that “these patterns could be characteristic of South America as a continent” (p. 95), nor does she reflect on how these patterns are similar to or different from possession-marking patterns in languages outside South America. Overall, this article could use some more concrete examples of the strategies it discusses, but it nevertheless provides a good starting point.

Lichtenberk, F., Vaid, J., & Chen, H. (2011). On the interpretation of alienable vs. inalienable possession: A psycholinguistic investigation. Cognitive Linguistics, 22(4), 659-689. doi:10.1515/COGL.2011.025

Lichtenberk, Vaid, and Chen argue that the distinction between alienable and inalienable possessions can be influenced by cognitive factors. They suggest languages, such as English, that do not encode this distinction in their grammar rely on the real-world relationship between the possessed noun and possessor noun. In this way, they argue nouns that are “inherently relational” (p. 671) and whose possession is associated with a single, dominant interpretation (e.g. mother) are of the inalienable type, whereas nouns whose possession is open to interpretation (e.g. car) are of the alienable type. In contrast to other studies which focus on morphological and syntactic properties of inalienable possession, this article provides an exploration of psychological factors integral to a full understanding of this phenomenon. Taking a psycholinguistic perspective, Lichtenberk et al. provide strong evidence from both experimental and corpus data. They then apply these findings to the understanding of possession Oceanic languages which do make distinctions between alienable and inalienable possessions in the grammar. One limitation of the study is that it is unclear if these “cognitive” factors are indeed cognitive in nature as opposed to semantic or pragmatic. Ultimately, this work takes a unique perspective well worth exploring in addition to traditional linguistic case studies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bibliophileb (talk • contribs) 19:15, 2 October 2014 (UTC) --Bibliophileb (talk) 06:50, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Elemasa, JIAFU.

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