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The Expression of Predicative Possession in Belarusian and Lithuanian

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The Expression of Predicative Possession in Belarusian and Lithuanian View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Archivio della ricerca- Università di Roma La Sapienza The expression of predicative Possession in Belarusian and Lithuanian Lidia Federica Mazzitelli Università degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza” Johannes-Gutenberg Universität Mainz Table of contents List of abbreviations used in glosses 6 Introduction 9 I Part Possession: An introduction Chapter 1. An introduction to Possession 14 1.1 The Location Hypothesis 14 1.2 “Reference-point relationship” and “experiential gestalt”: cognitive approaches to 17 Possession 1.3 Possessive notions and the prototype approach 18 1.4 The semantic space of Possession: the “possessive notions” 20 1.5 Defining the semantics of Possession: three parameters 22 1.6 Possessive notions: further remarks 25 1.6.1 Physical Possession and Inanimate Alienable Possession 25 1.6.2 Temporary Possession 27 1.6.3 Social Possession 29 1.6.4 The possessive notions as they are presented in this work 29 Chapter 2. Encoding Possession in language 34 2.1 Attributive and predicative Possession 34 2.2 External possession 35 2.3 ‘Having’ and ‘belonging’: Two sides of the possessive relation 42 2.4 The typology of possessive constructions: Considering Heine (1997) and Stassen (2009) 45 2.4.1 Heine’s model: The ‘source schemas’ 42 2.4.2 Stassen’s model 45 2.5 The source schemas: a survey 47 2.5.1 Action schema 47 2.5.2 Location schema 48 2.5.3 The Companion Schema 49 2.5.4 The Goal schema 49 2 2.5.5 The Genitive and Equation schemas 50 2.5.6 The Source schema 50 2.5.7 The Topic schema 51 2.6 Possessive constructions and possessive notions: a typological outline 51 Part II Predicative Possession in Belarusian and Lithuanian Chapter 3. Belarusian and Lithuanian in context 54 3.1 The expression of predicative Possession in Baltic and Slavic 54 3.1.1 The expression of Possession in Baltic 55 3.1.2 The expression of Possession in Slavic 56 3.2 The expression of Possession in the languages of the Circum-Baltic Area 60 3.3 Belarusian and Lithuanian in contact 61 3.4. The sociolinguistic context of Belarusian and Lithuanian: a brief survey 63 3.4.1 The development of Lithuanian: external influences and puristic tendencies 63 3.4.2 Belarusian: an introduction 65 3.4.2.1 Language policies in Belarus’ and the standardisation process of modern Belarusian 66 3.4.2.2 The double Belarusian standard: taraškevica and narkamaŭka 69 3.4.2.3 The sociolinguistic situation in Belarus’ at the present time 71 Chapter 4. The sources of the data: the Belarusian and the Lithuanian corpus 75 4.1 The Lithuanian corpus 75 4.2 The Belarusian corpus 75 4.3 The Internet 77 4.4.Native speakers 78 Chapter 5. The source schemas and their realization in Belarusian and 80 Lithuanian 5.1. The Action schema in Belarusian 82 5.1.1 Abstract Possession 83 5.1.2 Inanimate Possession 83 5.1.3 Ownership 84 5.1.4 Social Possession 85 3 5.1.5 Inalienable Possession 85 5.1.6 Physical and Temporary Possession 87 5.1 .7 Trymac’ 91 5.2 The Action schema in Lithuanian 91 5.2.1 Abstract Possession 92 5.2.2 Inanimate Possession 93 5.2.3 Ownership 94 5.2.4 Social Possession 95 5.2.5 Physical and Temporary Possession 95 5.2.6 Inalienable Possession 97 5.3 The Location schema in Belarusian 99 5.3.1 Constructions with no possessive functions 99 5.3.2 U + Gen. 99 5.3.2.1 Abstract possession 100 5.3.2.2 Social Possession 101 5.3.2.3 Ownership 101 5.3.2.4 Inanimate Possession 102 5.3.2.5 Inalienable Possession 103 5.3.2.6 Temporary and Physical Possession 105 5.3.3 Pry 106 5.3.4 Za + Instr. 107 5.4 The Location schema in Lithuanian 108 5.4.1 Constructions without possessive meaning 108 5.4.2 Pas + Acc. 109 5.4.2.1 Possessive pas in the corpus 110 5.4.2.2 Possessive pas on the Internet 111 5.5 The Goal schema in Belarusian 114 5.5.1 Abstract Possession 114 5.5.2 Social Possession 115 5.6 The Goal schema in Lithuanian 117 5.6.1 Abstract possession 117 5.6.2 Social Possession 118 5.6.3 Inalienable Possession: “Incomplete” physical details 120 5.7 The Companion schema in Belarusian 122 4 5.8 The Companion schema in Lithuanian 124 5.8.1 Inanimate Possession 125 5.8.2 Temporary Possession 125 5.8.3 Abstract Possession 126 5.8.4 Inalienable Possession 126 5.8.5 Social Possession 128 5.9 The Source schema in Belarusian and Lithuanian 128 5.10 The Equation schema 129 5.11 The source schemas in Belarusian and Lithuanian: a survey 129 5.12 The Lithuanian ‘topicalised genitive’ and the Belarusian constructions like Valasy ŭ jae 133 byli svetlyja, Vočy ŭ jae zjalënyja 5.12.1 The Lithuanian ‘topicalised genitive’: considering Holvoet 2005 and 2003a,b: 134 5.12.2 The ‘topicalised genitive’ in contemporary Lithuanian 135 5.12.3 The Belarusian constructions like Valasy ŭ jae byli svetlyja, Vočy ŭ jae zjalënyja 137 5.13 Competing strategies in Belarusian and Lithuanian: the case of BKI constructions 139 5.14 Remarks about the expression of Possession in Old Lithuanian and in Old Belarusian 145 Chapter 6. Belarusian and Lithuanian ‘have’ 147 6.1 Mec’ and u + Gen. as competing strategies in Belarusian 147 6.1.1 Restrictions on the use of mec’ 147 6.1.2 Mec’ versus u + Gen.: non-semantic factors 150 6.2 Restrictions on the use of turėti 152 6.3. Restrictions on the use of turėti and mec’: an attempt at an explanation 153 6.4 ‘Have’ as a temporal and modal auxiliary 155 6.4.1 Mec’ as temporal and modal auxiliary in Belarusian 155 6.4.2 The auxiliary functions of mecca 161 6.5 Turėti as modal auxiliary 162 6.6 Mec’ and turėti in resultative constructions 163 6.7 Belarusian and Lithuanian ‘have’ in areal perspective 166 Conclusions 170 Appendix 173 References 188 5 List of abbreviations 1 first person 2 second person 3 third person ACC accusative ADESS adessive ADVERBIAL adverbial COMP complementizer COND conditional DAT dative DEF definite F feminine FUT future GEN genitive GER gerund IMP imperative INF infinitive INS instrumental ITER iterative LOC locative M masculine N neuter NEG negation NOM nominative NP noun phrase PaPA past participle active PART particle PRN pronoun PST past PE Possessee PGER past gerund PL plural PPA present participle active 6 PPP past participle passive PR Possessor PRED predicate PRS present REFL reflexive REL relative SG singular Q question particle VOC vocative 7 Dear Wormwood, […] the sense of ownership in general is always to be encouraged. The humans are always putting up claims to ownership which sound equally funny in Heaven and in Hell and we [the devils] must keep them doing so. […] We produce this sense of ownership not only by pride but by confusion. We teach them not to notice the different senses of the possessive pronoun—the finely graded differences that run from "my boots" through "my dog", "my servant", "my wife", "my father", "my master" and "my country", to "my God". They can be taught to reduce all these senses to that of "my boots", the "my" of ownership. Even in the nursery a child can be taught to mean by "my Teddy-bear" not the old imagined recipient of affection to whom it stands in a special relation (for that is what the Enemy [God] will teach them to mean if we are not careful) but "the bear I can pull to pieces if I like". And at the other end of the scale, we have taught men to say "My God" in a sense not really very different from "My boots", meaning "The God on whom I have a claim for my distinguished services and whom I exploit from the pulpit—the God I have done a corner in". And all the time the joke is that the word "Mine" in its fully possessive sense cannot be uttered by a human being about anything. In the long run either Our Father [the devil] or the Enemy [God] will say "Mine" of each thing that exists, and specially of each man. They will find out in the end, never fear, to whom their time, their souls, and their bodies really belong—certainly not to them, whatever happens. Your affectionate uncle, SCREWTAPE (C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters) 8 Introduction (i) The object of this work: the expression of predicative Possession in the Belarusian and Lithuanian context The main aim of this work is to elucidate how Belarusian and Lithuanian express predicative Possession: that is, it aims at presenting and analysing the syntactic means these two languages use to encode the possessive relation at the sentential level. Secondly, it also aims at analysing the role that the verbs for ‘have’(turėti in Lithuanian and mec’ in Belarusian) fulfil in these two languages, with particular regard to their non-possessive functions. The topic of the expression of Possession in the languages of the world cannot be described as underestimated, or underanalysed. Many works, some of which fundamental, have already been written on this subject, both with reference to general typology (inter alia, Seiler 1983, Heine 1997, Stassen 2009) and to Slavic and Baltic in particular (inter alia, Kalnyn’ and Mološnaja 1986, Clancy 2010).
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