Full Description
This volume, the fifth in the series Case and Grammatical Relations across Languages, is devoted to genitive constructions in a range of Indo-European languages (Russian, French, Romanian, German and Swedish), as well as Finnish, Bantu languages and Northern Akhvakh (Northeast Caucasian). Definitions of genitives typically start out from the notion of an inflectional marker, often suffixal, that marks dependency relations of a noun phrase with respect to another noun phrase and conveys possessive meaning. The contributions in this volume demonstrate a huge range of variation in genitives, semantically (from possessive meaning to generalized dependency), morphologically (from affixes to different types of clitics) and syntactically (from adnominal uses to argument relations and adjunct uses). The volume contains both general surveys of genitives and case studies of the semantics, pragmatics and historical development of specific genitive constructions. It will be of interest to scholars and students in syntax, semantics, morphology, typology, and historical linguistics.
Contents
1. Acknowledgements; 2. Genitive case and genitive constructions: An introduction (by Carlier, Anne); 3. Part 1. General surveys; 4. The genitive case and the possessive construction in Finnish (by Mahieu, Marc-Antoine); 5. The Russian genitive within the NP and the VP (by Peteghem, Marleen Van); 6. Nominal and pronominal possessors in Romanian (by Giurgea, Ion); 7. De: A genitive marker in French?: Its grammaticalization path from Latin to French (by Carlier, Anne); 8. The Bantu connective construction (by Velde, Mark Van de); 9. Part 2. Case studies; 10. Word order restrictions in adnominal constructions: The case of the German pre- versus postnominal genitive (by Campe, Petra); 11. Tracing the origins of the Swedish group genitive (by Norde, Muriel); 12. Floating genitives and possessive framing in Northern Akhvakh (by Creissels, Denis); 13. Index
