Alienability
Do “my hand” and “my house” use the same grammar?
Hands and mothers come with a possessor built in; houses and books change hands. Grammars pick this up: some force a possessive onto body-part and kin nouns or give them special possessed forms, some route acquired things through a classifier, Mandarin lets its linker drop exactly with kin, and much of Europe moves the body-part possessor onto the verb as a dative.
- 形式结构
- 斜格标记
策略
Obligatory possession
[I=] [hand-POSS]Body-part and kin nouns carry a possessed form or never appear without their possessor. Ainu tek “hand” has the possessed form teke(he); Navajo kin terms are bound stems, with ʼa- “someone’s” standing in when no possessor is named.
Possessive classifier
[the] [CLF-my] [house]Inalienable nouns take the possessive suffix directly; the rest reach it through a classifier. Fijian keeps a general, an edible and a drinkable class; the Polynesian a/o split works the same way with two.
Marker drop
[my] (LINK) [mom]One construction serves everywhere, and its linker weakens where the bond is closest. Mandarin 的 drops freely with kin — 我妈 “my mom” — and stays with belongings — 我的书 “my book”.
External possessor
[me.DAT] [wash] [the hand]The split shows in the clause. A body part takes a definite article and its possessor climbs onto the verb as a dative — German mir die Hände — across a Western and Central European area.
No split
[my] [hand] = [my] [house]One possessive for everything. English my, Japanese の and the Turkish suffixes treat hands, mothers and houses alike.
地理分布
每个圆点代表一个已记录的语言，颜色对应它所采用的策略。点击任意圆点可查看其具体形式。
Marker positions are approximate cultural centres — they are not territorial claims. Tiles: OpenFreeMap · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Dark tiles: © CARTO.
语言对比
| Language | Strategy | Expression | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
Ainu Ainu (isolate, critically endangered) | Obligatory possession | tek → teke(he) | concept form against possessed form: sapa “head” → sapaha; a house is alienable and takes attributive kor instead: ku=kor cise “my house” |
Navajo Athabaskan | Obligatory possession | shimá, shílaʼ | kin and body-part nouns are bound stems; the indefinite prefix ʼa- stands in when no possessor is named: ʼamá “someone’s mother” |
Fijian Austronesian › Oceanic | Possessive classifier | liga-qu vs no-qu vale | the suffix sits on body parts and kin directly; other nouns take it on a classifier — no- general, ke- edible, me- drinkable |
Hawaiian Austronesian › Polynesian | Possessive classifier | koʻu lima vs kaʻu puke | o-class for body parts, elder kin, clothing and shelter; a-class for acquired things — the split runs on control as much as on alienability |
Mandarin Chinese Sino-Tibetan › Sinitic | Marker drop | 我妈 vs 我的书 wǒ mā vs wǒ de shū | 的 drops most readily with kin and other close relations |
German Indo-European › Germanic | External possessor | mir die Hände | dative possessor with a definite article on the body part: sie wäscht mir die Hände “she washes my hands” |
French Indo-European › Romance | External possessor | me … les mains | dative clitic plus definite article |
Spanish Indo-European › Romance | External possessor | me … las manos | |
English Indo-European › Germanic | No split | my hand / my house | one possessive throughout; even body-part washing keeps my where its neighbours use a dative |
Japanese Japonic | No split | 私の手 / 私の家 watashi no te / watashi no ie | の throughout |
Turkish Turkic › Oghuz | No split | elim / evim | the same possessive suffix on every noun |
例句
在「自然 / 直译 / 注释」之间切换，对比同一概念在各语言中的不同表达方式。
“my hand”
The inalienable test. Ainu switches to the possessed form teke(he), Navajo and Fijian attach the person marker straight to the noun, Hawaiian picks its o-class, and English, Japanese and Turkish use their ordinary possessive.
ku=tekehe
クテケヘ
- 自然
- my hand
shílaʼ
- 自然
- my hand
na ligaqu
- 自然
- my hand
koʻu lima
- 自然
- my hand
my hand
- 自然
- my hand
私の手
watashi no te
- 自然
- my hand
elim
- 自然
- my hand
参考文献
- Bugaeva 2012 01Bugaeva, Anna (2012).Southern Hokkaido Ainu.In Tranter, Nicolas (eds.), The Languages of Japan and Korea. Routledge. 461–509.
- Chappell & McGregor 1996 02Chappell, Hilary; McGregor, William (1996).The Grammar of Inalienability: A Typological Perspective on Body Part Terms and the Part-Whole Relation.Mouton de Gruyter.
- Dixon 1988 03Dixon, R. M. W. (1988).A Grammar of Boumaa Fijian.University of Chicago Press.
- Elbert & Pukui 1979 04Elbert, Samuel H.; Pukui, Mary Kawena (1979).Hawaiian Grammar.University Press of Hawaii.
- Haspelmath 1999 05Haspelmath, Martin (1999).External possession in a European areal perspective.In Payne, Doris L.; Barshi, Immanuel (eds.), External Possession. John Benjamins. 109–135.
- Haspelmath 2017 06Haspelmath, Martin (2017).Explaining alienability contrasts in adpossessive constructions: Predictability vs. iconicity.
- Heine 1997 07Heine, Bernd (1997).Possession: Cognitive Sources, Forces, and Grammaticalization.Cambridge University Press.
- Li & Thompson 1981 08Li, Charles N.; Thompson, Sandra A. (1981).Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar.University of California Press.
- Nichols 1988 09Nichols, Johanna (1988).On alienable and inalienable possession.In Shipley, William (eds.), In Honor of Mary Haas: From the Haas Festival Conference on Native American Linguistics. Mouton de Gruyter. 557–609.
- Nichols & Bickel 2013 10Nichols, Johanna; Bickel, Balthasar (2013).Possessive Classification.In Dryer, Matthew S.; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.), WALS Online (v2020.4), Chapter 59. Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. https://wals.info/chapter/59
- Tamura 2000 11Tamura, Suzuko (2000).The Ainu Language.ICHEL Linguistic Studies, Vol. 2. Sanseido, Tokyo.
- Young & Morgan 1987 12Young, Robert W.; Morgan, William (1987).The Navajo Language: A Grammar and Colloquial Dictionary.Revised edition. University of New Mexico Press.
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