Possessive affixes in the pragmatic structuring of the utterance: Evidence from Uralic
Irina Nikolaeva
University of Konstanz
1. Introduction
In the Uralic languages, possessive affixes on the possessed noun can indicate the possessor,
either overtly present, or recoverable from the context, as in example 1a below. In this case
the relationship between the possessor and the possessed is one of those relations which are
usually regarded as prototypical for possessive constructions, such as part-whole, kinship, or
legal ownership (Langacker 1993, and others), or one of the other meanings usually
expressed by the possessive construction across languages (Nikiforidou 1991; Langacker
1995: 56; Heine 1997: 34–5, and others). On other occasions the possessive affix is used
when no possessive relationship exists, as in example 1b, where there is no possessor for the
noun water.1
(1)
a.
b.
(tu -n)
wüt-šö
Cheremis
2
(he-GEN)
water-3SG
his water
Wüt-šö
jo a, ser-že
ko eš.
water-3SG
runs bank-3SG
remains
The water is running (and) the riverbanks remain. (Bereczki 1990: 43)
The potential possessor may be recoverable from the form of the possessive affix, for
example, when it corresponds to the 1st or the 2nd person pronouns. But even in this case there
is no obvious possessive relationship between the pronoun and the possessed.
This fact is well known from the descriptive literature on Uralic; however one
common assumption underlies practically all accounts. It has been repeatedly stated that the
function of “non-possessive” possessive affixes is to mark the definiteness of the host noun,
functioning as a kind of definite article. Collinder (1957: 276, 322, 349, 426, 459, 494; 1960:
203), Kokla (1963: 35-36), Tauli (1966: 148), Rédei (1978: 61), Kuznecova et al. (1980:
187), Hajdú and Domokos (1987: 223), Bereczki (1990: 43), Csúcs (1990: 77), to name just a
few, explicitly claim that the 3rd person and sometimes also the 2nd person Singular
possessive affixes have this meaning. It is often thought of as their second function, after the
expression of the possessive relationship.
Several arguments can be advanced against this “definiteness” account. First,
possessive affixes in the non-possessive function are compatible with NPs that are
unambiguously indefinite, as in the following example from Northern Ostyak:
(2)
Am laj- l
kaw rl.
something-3SG
cooks
(She) is cooking something.
Ostyak
Second, in at least some of the languages in question the possessive affixes can attach to nonnouns. Although verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, and numerals do not have a
referent in the sense that nouns do and therefore are not associated with the category of
definiteness, they can nevertheless host a possessive affix. For example, in 3 the possessive
affix marks the conjunction ‘if’.
(3)
Ot
jü
k n-že
jum la-n
tau.
Cheremis
2
NEG drink if-3SG
God-GEN
thank
If you don’t drink, thanks be to God. (Bereczki 1990: 43)
Furthermore, one can find possessive affixes on nouns already marked for definiteness, for
example, on personal pronouns, which are universally known to be incompatible with the
definite article (Lyons 1999, and others), or on nouns already marked as possessive, cf.:
(4)
a.
b.
Kod no
mi-ys?
who FOC we-3SG
Who are we? (Serebrennikov 1963: 133)
Ü r-em-že, ü r-em-že, ü r!
girl-1SG-3SG girl-1SG-3SG girl
And my daughter, what sort of girl she is! (Tužarov 1987: 67)
Komi
Cheremis
Finally, the definiteness approach cannot explain the personal distribution of possessive
affixes with a non-possessive function. Although traditional descriptions state that this usage
is limited to the 3rd and 2nd person Singular, it is in fact also attested in the 1st person, for
example:
(5)
T m xuj-em
x a j xt s?
this
man-1SG
where came.3SG
Where did this man come from?
Ostyak
The Plural possessive affixes can also be used in a similar manner. Thus, all possessive suffixes
are involved in expressing a non-possessive relationship, and crucially they are not always
interchangeable. For example, in 4 the 1st and the 2nd person and in 5 the 2nd and 3rd person
affixes are impossible. The definiteness approach does not explain this fact.
The purpose of this paper is to have a closer look at non-possessive meanings of the
Uralic possessive affixes. I will argue that although the intuition behind the definiteness
analysis is partly correct, it cannot account for all the relevant data. This leads me to suggest
a more refined classification of the meanings in question, of which definiteness is but one. At
the end of the paper I will briefly address the question of how these meanings are interrelated
and what it tells us about the nature of possession as a cognitive category.
2. Identifiability
It seems that possessive affixes in some Uralic languages may indeed express identifiability,
though not to such an extent as to mark the grammatical category of definiteness. By
identifiability I understand a cognitive status of a referent whose mental representation the
interlocutors share at the time of the utterance. As a result, the addressee is able to identify
the referent of a linguistic expression as the one which the speaker has in mind (Chafe 1976,
and others). As a cognitive category, identifiability is apparently universal, in the sense that
speakers of all languages have identical cognitive abilities to identify a referent. In contrast,
definiteness is a grammatical category and as such is language-specific. Definiteness will be
understood as a formal feature associated with nominal expressions, which signals whether or
not a referent is assumed by the speaker to be identifiable. As argued, for example, in
Lambrecht (1994: 79-87), there is no one-to-one relation between definiteness and
identifiability. This follows in particular from the fact that the rules governing the use of the
definite article vary greatly across languages, while the mental ability to identify referents is,
presumably, the same.
3
In Uralic, identifiability can be expressed by means of the 3rd person Singular
possessive affix only. Other possessive affixes are not used in this function.
2.1. Identifiability based on deixis and situational context
A referent can be identifiable in a given situation because it is visible or otherwise salient in
the speech setting. As noticed in Serebrennikov (1963: 131), in Komi nouns referring to
objects present in the situation normally take the 3rd person possessive affix. For example, if a
group of people meets a bear in the forest, a bear is likely to be referred to by the 3rd person
form ošk-yz, literally ‘his bear’. The possessive affixes express situational identifiability on
nouns denoting natural objects and phenomena unique in a given situation, such as rain,
lightning, or grass. Although these objects are not inherently unique like the sun, in normal
speech it is likely to be a particular occurrence of rainfall that is discussed, usually the rain
that is falling at that time. The speaker and the addressee can unambiguously pick up the
referent designated by the respective noun because of their shared knowledge of the situation.
In 6a below his snow refers to the snow which is around at the moment of speech, and this is
marked by the 3rd person Singular possessive affix. In 6b the 3rd person possessive affix
indicates that the grass in question is available for direct sensory perception.
(6)
a.
b.
donü o.
Sürü- ü
snow-3SG
melted.3SG
The snow has melted. (Tereš enko 1979: 95)
Guždor
vylyn turyn-ez
eber.
field
on
grass-3SG
beautiful
The grass on the field is beautiful. (Alatyrev 1970: 85)
Nganasan
Udmurt
This kind of identifiability is based on deixis.
Further, identifiability may be based on the role of a referent in a larger situational
context. A referent is uniquely identifiable from a general knowledge of the world, when it is
altogether unique and therefore can be unambiguously recognized by the addressee at all
moments of time. This mostly concerns unique natural objects such as the sun or the moon,
which are normally denoted by definite nouns in article languages. In Mordvin, Permic, ObUgric and Samoyed such nouns normally bear the 3rd person Singular possessive affix,
although existing accounts do not make clear whether it is obligatory in this case (see
Feoktistov 1963: 126-127; Hajdú 1982: 73; Kim 1987: 11; Kuznecova et al. 1980: 188;
Tereš enko 1979: 95, and others). My field data on Northern Ostyak, at least, suggests that
they are not. Some examples are: Moksha Mordvin kov-ze ‘the moon’, Nganasan m u- u
‘the earth’, Selkup ce:ly-ty ‘the sun’, Ostyak m w- l ‘the earth’, Komi nebo-ys ‘the sky’ (the
hyphen separates the 3rd person Singular possessive affixes). Although less consistently, the
3rd person possessive affix can also mark the unique identifiability of generic nouns. Like
unique objects, generic noun phrases do not require a situational context to be interpreted.
They refer to a class of objects, and in this sense there is only one referent which they can
appropriately designate, cf.:
(7)
Tup suml woj- l
ul.
only stripy animal-3SG is
There are completely stripy animals.
Ostyak
4
This presumably underlies the use of the 3rd person possessive in certain phraseological
expressions in Mordvin, as mentioned in Feoktistov (1963: 127-128), cf. Moksha Mordvin
viden-c azoms ‘to tell the truth’.
Second, a noun may have a unique reference in a more restricted situational context.
This is typical of expressions designating periods of time, such as morning, summer, and
year. The default interpretation of these expressions is ‘this morning’, ‘this summer’, and
‘this year’, therefore in the unmarked case their referents are uniquely identified by the
interlocutors. The respective nouns normally bear the 3rd person possessive, for example,
Ostyak at-l ‘this night’ and Selkup qary-ty ‘this morning’. This has generalized on other
meanings as well. Thus the Ostyak at-l may be also used in a more general meaning ‘in the
night’ and the Cheremis d’üt-šö ke -že means ‘day and night’ (Bereczki 1990: 43).
However, using the possessive affix on non-referential nouns denoting periods of time is
completely impossible, cf.:
(8)
T ta at- t
x w- t.
here night-PL
long-PL
Here the nights are long.
Ostyak
Interestingly, I failed to find possessive affixes indicating identifiability through a situational
context, when the respective referent is not a natural phenomenon. In the article languages,
for example in English, such nouns would bear the definite article: the house, in the context
of the family, the queen, in the context of the British life. Although their referents are not
immediately present in the speech situation, only one entity can qualify as the appropriate
referent. Whether or not the lack of possessive affixes in Uralic here is accidental, I cannot
say at this stage.
2.2. Identifiability based on anaphora
Anaphoric reference is based on the previous mention of a referent in the discourse. Since the
referent is saliently present in the internal discourse world, its status as identifiable is taken
for granted and is normally preserved throughout the text. In Ob-Ugric, Cheremis (Kokla
1963), Komi and marginally Udmurt (Serebrennikov 1963), Selkup (Kuznecova et al. 1980:
187) and possibly other Samoyed languages, the 3rd person Singular possessives signal the
relationship of identity with a previously mentioned referent. In 9a the referent of the word
park is newly introduced in the discourse, and the respective noun does not bear a possessive
affix. In 9b the same park is mentioned again, but the word park bears the 3rd person
possessive affix, whose function is to mark the identifiable status of the corresponding
referent. A similar contrast exists between the newly mentioned boat in 10a, and its second
mention in 10b, as well as in 11.
(9)
a.
b.
(10)
a.
Važ a bazarnej
ploššad
vyle … odisny …
park.
Komi
old
market
square
on
made.3PL
park
On the old market square they have made a park.
Interesne
ku em loe
park-ys
interesting
which will.be
park-3SG
Interesting, what will become of this park? (Serebrennikov 1963: 129)
Qoltyt
river
qanyqqyn
bank.on
anty
boat
totta,
stands
Selkup
5
b.
(11)
a.
b.
A boat stands on the riverbank,
anty-ty
lapyk :l
: a.
boat-3SG
oar.without is
this boat doesn’t have an oar. (Kuznecova et al. 1980: 187)
ull - n kat ni
sar
ur
mor ur
kutna.
Ostyak
are-3DU two woman thick forest tight forest
in
There are two women in a thick forest.
i
ni - l
nur
atsam, i
ni - l
nur noms .
one
woman-3SG very stupid one
woman-3SG very clever
One woman is very stupid, another woman is very clever.
Crucially, unlike the article in European languages, which obligatorily marks the
identifiable status of the referent throughout the discourse or the situation of speech, in Uralic
the use of possessive affixes in this function is purely optional. Thus 12a 12b and 12c are
perfectly grammatical in the same context as 9b, 10b and 11b.
(12)
a.
b.
c.
Interesne
ku em
loe
park.
interesting
which
will.be
park
Interesting, what will become of this park?
Anty lapyk :l
: a
boat oar.without is
This boat doesn’t have an oar
nur
atsam, i
ni
nur noms .
i
ni
one
woman very stupid one
woman very clever
One woman is very stupid, another woman is very clever.
Komi
Selkup
Ostyak
In other words, a noun whose referent has been mentioned in the previous discourse may and
in practice often does remain unmarked. The possessive affix encoding anaphoric
identifiability is only employed if the speaker chooses to emphasize the identifiable status of
the referent, so it is conditioned pragmatically rather than by rules of grammar.
To summarize, the use of the 3rd person possessive affix in Uralic is comparable to the
uses of the definite article in article languages and includes: (i) a direct anaphoric use; (ii) an
immediate situation use, and (iii) a larger situation use (cf. Hawkins 1978 for English).
However, the affix is not obligatory in any of these functions and so has not become fully
grammaticalized. It is not possible to speak of the emergence of the category of article in the
languages in question (cf. Leinonen 1998: 86, and Fraurud 2001, for additional arguments
against grammaticalization).
3. Associative relationship
The possessive construction is sometimes analyzed as a semantically indeterminate
construction which can express any kind of relationship between the possessor and the
possessed (Kempson 1977: 125; Williams 1982: 283; Sperber and Wilson 1986: 188, among
others). As it is assumed to be semantically incomplete, the list of possible interpretations can
be extended indefinitely, subject to contextual factors. Indeed, as has been noticed in various
places, the possessive construction such as John’s house can in an appropriate context mean
not only ‘the house that John owns’, but also ‘the house John is talking about’, ‘the house
John is looking at’, ‘the house John intends to buy’, and so on. Kay and Zimmer (1976) argue
6
that the possessive (in their terminology, Genitive) noun phrase is simply a metalinguistic
instruction to the hearer that there is some kind of relation between the Genitive and the head.
The hearer supplies the appropriate interpretation within a given context.
Several problems with the “semantic incompleteness” account are addressed in detail
in Nikiforidou (1991) and Taylor (1996). Most importantly, not all relations between two
nominals may be encoded by means of the possessive construction. For example, although
fish and chips are closely associated notions in the English speaking world, neither *the fish'
s
chips nor *the chips'fish are acceptable (Taylor 1996: 9). As Taylor (1989, 1995, 1996)
further proposes, this is because the semantics of possessives is not amorphous, but has an
internal structure. It can be characterized as a structured cluster of independent prototypical
properties defined in terms of physical proximity between the possessor and the possessed,
exclusive access to the possessed, time, and so on. Legal ownership or inalienable possession
are characterized by all these properties. However, since the prototype is a complex cluster of
properties, it allows various deviations. Interpretations of possessive constructions differ
greatly with regard to their relative degree of prototypicity. For example, when John’s car
means ‘the car that belongs to John’ all prototypical properties hold. But this expression can
be taken to mean ‘the car that John is driving at the moment (but that does not belong to
him)’ in which case such properties as the long-term relationship between two entities and the
exclusive rights of the possessor on the possessed do not hold.3
So the possessive construction allows for various readings. Although there is a bias
for a prototypical ownership interpretation, other relations are also possible. I will refer to this
non-prototypical possessive relationship as “associative”.4 This term captures the fact that
such possessive constructions denote some kind of association between two entities. Its
semantic content is determined situationally and pragmatically and can be established only
within a given context. As argued by Hawkins (1981), this means that the relation between
the possessor and the possessed must be construed as pragmatically plausible.5 In the next
two sections I will show how the notion of the associative possessive discussed here accounts
for the use of possessive affixes in Uralic.
3.1. Linking to the speech setting
Possessive affixes of the 1st and 2nd person may express reference to an element which is
saliently present in the language-external world, namely in the speech setting. In the situation
of a dialogue these affixes serve to identify a referent of the respective noun through its
linkage to the participants of the speech act. The function of the 1st person possessive affix is
to establish a kind of a close pragmatic relation between the speaker and the addressee. The
1st person possessive affix in addresses indicates that the speaker conceives the referent of the
address as belonging to his personal sphere. This usage of the possessive construction
sporadically occurs in some European languages, cf. for example the German meine Damen
und Herren, but it is especially frequent in Uralic. The 1st person possessive affix is common
in addresses in Permic (Kel’makov 1996), Ob-Ugric, Mordvin (Feoktistov 1963: 129-130),
and Cheremis (Kokla 1963). Some examples are:
(13)
a.
b.
Va a e- e!
Vasya-1SG
Vasya (literally: my Vasya)!
Ton
eber
apaj-e!
you
beautiful
sister-1SG
You, my beautiful sister!
Mordvin
Udmurt
7
As noticed by Kel’makov (1996), in Udmurt at least the 1st person suffix in addresses
expresses an especially affectionate attitude towards the addressee and is therefore
comparable with the diminutive in the affectionate use (cf. Russian Sestri ka!).
The 2nd person possessive has a different function. It may indicate that the speaker
somehow pragmatically associates the listener and the referent of the corresponding noun. It
is very common in imperative utterances, especially on the object of the Imperative verb, in
eastern Uralic languages, Ob-Ugric and Samoyed. In the Selkup example 14 the word fire
takes the 2nd person possessive affix, although the fire cannot be considered as an actual
belonging of the addressee (in fact, the fire does not yet exist, when this sentence is uttered).
The function of the possessive affix is to indicate that in the consciousness of the speaker the
fire is somehow associated with the addressee.
(14)
:ty yli:.
Tü-li:
fire-2DU
make.IMP.2DU
Make (DU) a fire. (Kuznecova et al. 1980: 188)
Selkup
In this function the 2nd person personal marking is also available on virtually any noun
in a situation of a dialogue or a story addressed to a particular person, as attested in Ob-Ugric,
Samoyed and Permic. For example, the Ostyak sentence 14a can be produced when the
speaker and the addressee look at several moving cars. The speaker wants to refer to one of
these cars and uses the word car with the 2nd person possessive affix, although the car does
not belong to the listener in any way. The reason for using the possessive suffix is that the
speaker intends to call the attention of the listener to the car. Basically the car is “yours”
because “I am talking to you about it”. So the possessive affix indicates that in the
consciousness of the speaker the listener and the car are pragmatically linked. A similar
reasoning applies to example 15b, where the name of the city bears the 2nd person possessive
affix. Of course the city does not belong to the girl, but presumably the girl has asked about it
previously. The girl and the city are associated in the consciousness of the speaker, and the
speaker expresses this association linguistically by means of the possessive affix.
(15)
a.
b.
Wanta t m
mašinaj-en
jowra m n s.
see
this
car-2SG
awry went.3SG
Look, that car went awry.
Oj,
ylyn ed
sije
Kijev-yd,
musa nylej.
oh
far
is
it
Kiev-2SG
dear girl
Oh, Kiev is far, dear girl. (Serebrennikov 1963: 135)
Ostyak
Komi
Note that the possessive affix in this case has nothing to do with expressing
definiteness. In fact, the definiteness marking in 15 is present independently of it: in 15b the
respective noun is a proper noun and as such is definite, while in 14a it is determined by the
demonstrative. My Ostyak consultants insisted that removing the demonstrative in 14a would
necessarily yield the ownership interpretation of the possessive affix (your car in the sense
‘the car that belongs to you’). Similarly, in example 5 the demonstrative t m is obligatory in
the intended reading.6 Thus, the associative possessive affixes are likely to appear on nouns
already marked for definiteness and have a rather different function, namely, they express a
pragmatic association between the respective referent and another entity. This apparently
creates a special emotional effect for the addressee. As noticed in the literature, at least in
Cheremis, Komi and Udmurt the 2nd person possessive affix is very common in folklore,
where it generates a personal atmosphere (subjektive Nuancierung, in the terminology of
Schlachter 1960), when the listener feels himself involved in the described event.
8
The 2nd person possessive affix in this function may take over the 3rd person
possessive affix expressing identifiability, as described previously. That is, in a dialogue or a
story addressed to a particular person the 2nd person affix may indicate that the referent has
been introduced in the previous discourse, as illustrated in 16. In 16b both the 3rd person and
the 2nd person possessive affix are acceptable on the noun the old woman, whose referent is
identifiable from the preceding sentence. The second option exemplified here is available
when the speaker wants to make the utterance somehow emotionally closer to the addressee.
Similarly, in at least in Ob-Ugric and Permic the 2nd person possessives can mark unique
identifiability, just as the 3rd person possessives. This is shown in 17 with the generic noun
phrase the Soviet man.
(16)
a.
b.
(17)
Puxacyako
yilyewi°.
old.woman
live.NARR.3SG
An old woman is living.
Puxacyako-nt°
syidya søwa nyu-da.
old.woman-GEN.2SG
two
nice son-3SG
This old woman has two nice sons.
ku em
So
ed
here particle
which
How happy is the Soviet man!
šuda sevetskej
happy soviet
mort-yd!
man-2SG
Nenets
Komi
In a similar manner, the speech-linking 2nd person possessive affix can replace a possessive
affix with a purely possessive meaning, at least in the colloquial register. This is
demonstrated in 18, where the 2nd person possessive affix is used instead of the semantically
appropriate 3rd person.
(18)
a.
b.
jis
uže,
a -en
Ostyak
W l-li
big-TRANS became.3SG already
father-2SG
p lat-ti
wanam s
length-TRANS
reached.3SG
He has become big already; he has reached the size of his father.
xonty koptua.
Nganasan
Ba:rb u
master.GEN is
girl
Koptua-r
t'
etuamy
e a ku.
girl-2SG
very
pretty
The master has a daughter. His daughter is very pretty. (Tereš enko 1979: 95)
However, the 2nd person possessive affix with a “non-possessive” meaning is impossible in
the first sentence of a narrative text, since at this stage there is no pragmatic association
between the referent and the listener in the speaker’s consciousness.
3.2. Linking to a discourse-internal element
As mentioned above, possessive constructions in Indo-European languages can express the
associative relationship, but this requires a very special pragmatic context. Normally
pragmatic association between two nouns is encoded by other means (for example, the
definite article in the associative anaphoric use). In Uralic, possessive affixes of virtually all
persons and numbers are employed in this function. In Ob-Ugric, Samoyed, Permic and
9
Cheremis they encode referential anchoring to another discourse-internal element through the
associative relationship. This relationship is situational and is normally established prior to
the time when the sentence is uttered. It is created in the consciousness of the speaker by the
context and/or the general encyclopedic knowledge of the linguistic community about typical
situations involving entities in question.
For example, in 19a the noun officer bears the 1st person possessive affix. Its function
here is to highlight the situational relationship between the speaker and the officer. The
meaning of the possessive affix can be paraphrased as something like ‘the officer I saw’ or
‘the officer I talked to’. Example 19b is taken from the text which describes the hero’s
meeting with a wolf in a forest. The noun animal here bears the 3rd person possessive affix
that expresses some kind of association between the hero and the animal. Similarly, in 19c
the possessive affix on the noun wolf can be paraphrased as ‘the wolf the dog was fighting
with’.
(19)
a.
b.
c.
Ruki vverx!
Cheremis
Važtareš -ž oficer šin a …
in.front-3SG officer sits
hands up
k k rem,
wintowk-em wiktem ...
sa e officer-em … šul š
shout.1SG
gun-1SG
aimed.1SG
this
officer-1SG melted.3SG
An officer was sitting in front (of her). I shouted “Hands up” and aimed my
gun. The officer got frightened (literally: melted). (Tužarov 1987: 68)
Ittam unti p ltap,
l w je alt
et m
Ostyak
now till
scary
he
in.front
appeared
woj- l
num sl.
animal-3SG thinks.3SG
He is still afraid whenever he remembers the animal that appeared in front of
him.
Wari° nix°-m-ta
mecy°
wenyako
nganyih
Nenets
last
strength-ACC-SG
gather.CONV dog
again
sarmyik-øx°n-ta
søney°q.
wolf-DAT-3SG
attacked.3SG
Having gathered its last strength, the dog attacked the wolf again. (Tereš enko
1965: 49)
The following contrast clearly demonstrates that possessive affixes in this function are only
available when the “possessor” is present in the previous discourse. In 20a the possessive
affix on the word xojat ‘man’ is impossible because the respective referent does not stand in a
presupposed relationship to another referent introduced in the previous discourse. In 20b the
same word is anchored to the element ‘dog’ in the preceding sentence, and this triggers the
associative possessive affix.
(20)
a.
b.
Amp elti
p ltam m
xojat / *xojat- l
x nt s.
god
from frightened
man / man-3SG
ran.3SG
The man who was frightened of the/a dog ran away.
Amp x talt s.
L w elti
p ltam m
xojat- l
dog
got.up.3SG he
from frightened
man-3SG
The dog got up. The man who got frightened of it ran away.
Ostyak
x nt s.
ran.3SG
Not every association between two entities can be expressed by means of possessive
affixes, but only the one which is relatively well established and falls under the scope of the
10
pragmatic presupposition associated with the utterance. This can be seen from the following
Nenets fragment elicited during my fieldwork.
(21)
Mønyº xarødº myuh tyu-dºm.
xardº-xøna
soldatº ngamdyowiº.
Nenets
I
house in
entered-1SG house-LOC soldier sat.NARR.3SG
Tyikiº soldat-ønºh (*soldat-xønyi)
tewiwºq,
tuºnyi-myi
yilø-dºm.
this
soldier-DAT soldier-DAT.1SG
came.1SG
gun-1SG
raise-1SG
Soldat-h/ soldat-ønyi
syey-da
xøya.
soldier-GEN / soldier-GEN.1SG
heart-3SG
went.3SG
I entered the house. There was a soldier sitting in the house. I came to this soldier and
raised my gun. The soldier got frightened (literally: the soldier’s heart went).
In the second sentence the word soldier does not bear a possessive affix. This is the first
mention of the respective referent in the discourse. As shown in brackets, the possessive affix
is also unacceptable in the third sentence I came to this soldier. Although the referent of the
word soldier is identifiable through its previous mention, the strong associative relationship
between it and the speaker is not yet created. However, in the last sentence the soldier got
frightened the speaker has the option to use the word soldier with the 1st person possessive
affix. The affix indicates that a presupposed associative relation between the speaker and the
soldier was established in the previous context (I came to this soldier). At least in some cases
the association between two entities encoded by means of possessive affixes must be a rather
long-term relationship. My Nenets consultant claimed that a 1st person possessive on the
word lake is impossible in the Nenets equivalent of the following text: Yesterday I saw a
large lake. There were a lot of fish in this lake. I caught a large white fish in this lake.
However, it is present in the second sentence in 22 below, where it shows that the pragmatic
association between the speaker and the lake has been created.
(22)
Mønyº syanº po-h
tyukuº to-h
xewxøna xanye-dºm.
Nenets
I
many year-GEN
this
lake-GEN
near
fish-1SG
Tyikiº to-xøna-nyi
xalya-da
ngoka ngœsyati.
this
lake-LOC-1SG
fish-3SG
many is
For many years I have gone fishing in this lake. There are a lot of fish in this lake.
Obviously, the presupposed associative relationship is a matter of the pragmatic construal of
the utterance and is difficult to generalize about. What is clear is that it must be wellestablished, either through repeated mentioning in the discourse or through a long-term
association between two entities.
To conclude this section, possessive affixes of all persons and numbers are involved
in expressing the presupposed semantic association between two entities. Since they crossreference the associative “possessor”, their choice is predictable. Thus, only the 1st person
possessive affix expresses the associative relation with the element I, while the 2nd and the 3rd
person possessive affixes are completely excluded here, and so on. The exact semantic
interpretation of the associative relationship depends on the situation and the context, but in
any case it is always part of the pragmatic presupposition carried by the utterance. This
presupposition may remain formally unexpressed, that is, possessive affixes are always
optional in this function. Their presence ultimately depends on how the speaker construes the
situation described by the sentence.
4. Emphasis and contrast
11
Finally, in the languages spoken in the Volga basin (Permic and Cheremis) “non-possessive”
possessive affixes of the 3rd person have one further function, not attested in other Uralic
languages. As has been noticed in various places, they can convey some kind of emphasis or
contrast associated with the corresponding item (Serebrennikov 1963; Tužarov 1987;
Leinonen 1998, and others). I have little to say about this case; in what follows I will only
limit myself to citing a few relevant examples.
The contrast can be understood as an implicature that generates a set of plausible
semantic alternatives (Chafe 1976). The contrastive item is opposed to the other members of
the set by virtue of participating in a given proposition. The strongest contrast is overt, that is,
when the alternative options are explicitly named in the context. As exemplified by the
Udmurt and Komi examples below, in these languages either both alternatives 23a or one of
them 23b may be marked by the 3rd person possessive affix.
(23)
a.
b.
Udmurt
Ulizy-vylizy
kyk
bratjos,
pok i-ez
lived-were.3SG
two
brothers
younger.brother-3SG
kuaner,
by ym-ez
uzyr.
poor
older.brother-3SG
rich
There lived two brothers, the younger one was poor, the older one was rich.
(Serebrennikov 1963: 133)
me
ebi, a
ru ka-se
Komi
Karandaš
pencil
I
bought and
pen-ACC.3SG
eg
eb.
NEG buy
I bought a pencil, but I didn’t buy a pen.
The covert contrast is somewhat “weaker” and the presence of the contrastive implicature is
not always obvious. This phenomenon is sometimes analyzed as some kind of emphasis
(Russian vydelitel’naja funkcija), but its exact nature and how it relates to contrastiveness has
not been studied sufficiently. An example is 24.
(24)
T j-že
kuze ilaš
tü alat?
you-3SG
how live will.2SG
And how are you going to live? (Tužarov 1987: 67)
Cheremis
The contrastive/emphasis function of the 3rd person possessive affixes is logically
independent of their identifiability function, as described in section 2. There is no a priori
requirement for a contrastive/emphatic element to be identifiable: identifiability has to do
with the ability of interlocutors to pick up a referent unambiguously, while contrast/emphasis
pertains to the relative saliency of the respective concept for the speaker. For this reason, the
contrastive/emphatic possessive affixes are compatible with indefinite noun phrases, as well
as with non-nominal constituents. In the latter case they seem to indicate that the respective
element is more important for the speaker than other elements, either evoked linguistically
(overt contrast) or presupposed (covert contrast). In the Cheremis example 25a the 3rd person
possessive affix is added to the personal verbal form, and in 25b it is on the place adverbial.
Leinonen (1998: 87) after Schlachter (1960: 108) notices that adverbials often take a
possessive affix in Komi. This is probably because they tend to be inherently contrastive.
(25)
a.
A
and
t j
you
kuze
how
jöratet-še?
love.2SG-3SG
Cheremis
12
b.
And how do you love? (Bereczki 1990: 43)
Da
kydzi ber-se
menym
tate
and
how back-3SG
I.DAT
from.here
And how shall I go back? (Leinonen 1998: 86)
munne?
go
Komi
In Udmurt the 3rd person possessive affix on the non-nominal constituent is less frequent and
seems to only be available on attributive adjectives, for example:
(26)
a.
b.
ed-ez
kyšet
Udmurt
black-3SG
scarf
a black scarf (Serebrennikov 1963: 133)
Buskel’jos-len
bad ym-ez pi-zy
armiy
neighbors-GEN
elder-3SG
son-3PL
army.from
bertyz
ini.
returned.3SG already
The elder son of the neighbors has already returned from army service.
(Kel’makov 2001: 179)
As far as I can tell, here its function is to mark an implicit contrast; 26a indicates that the
scarf is black as opposed to other colors, while in 26b the elder son is implicitly opposed to
the younger son(s). There is no such implication in the absence of the possessive affix.
As mentioned above, only the 3rd person possessive affixes are involved in expressing
contrast/emphasis. In Permic they are limited to the 3rd person Singular, while in Cheremis
we also find the 3rd person Plural. The latter are used on nouns which have Plural reference,
for example:
(27)
šo - št-vlak
pört
wokten
šin at,
elderly-3PL-PL
house
near
sit.3PL
rwez- št-vlak …
mod t.
young-3PL-PL
play.3PL
The elderly people sit by the house, (while) the young people play.
Cheremis
Like possessive affixes expressing identifiablity and the associative relationship,
contrastive/emphatic possessive affixes are always optional and are present only if the
speaker intends to emphasize the respective relation. The syntactic and semantic conditions
on their use are a matter for further study.
5. Concluding remarks
I have discussed three basic “non-possessive” meanings denoted by possessive affixes in
Uralic: (i) identifiability; (ii) an associative relationship with another entity; and (iii)
emphasis/contrast. The first two functions are typical of the majority of Uralic languages,
with the possible exception of the most western languages Hungarian and Balto-Finnic, and
are likely to go back at least to Proto-Uralic (cf. Lytkin et al. 1974: 270; Janhunen 1981: 32,
Décsy 1990: 81, and others). They both seem to follow from the basic meaning of the
possessive construction, the encoding of the relationship between two entities. This
relationship is crucially asymmetrical and is sometimes analyzes as being based on a
reference-point phenomenon (Langacker 1993, 1995, and other works). Reference-point is
understood as a fundamental aspect of cognitive processing, namely the ability to invoke the
13
conception of one entity for purposes of establishing mental contact with another entity.
Possessive constructions are a prototypical case of reference-point relationship because their
purpose is to encode some kind of semantic association between the “possessor” and the
“possessed”, while the former serves as a reference point for conceptualizing the latter. For
example, in the expression dog’s tail the element with the meaning of the part (tail) cannot
normally be recognized individually and requires first a conceptualization of the whole (dog).
As discussed above, possessive constructions involving non-relational nouns do not
necessarily have the prototypical ownership meaning, but are open to various readings
inferred from the context. In Uralic the range of possible relationships between two entities
encoded by means of the possessive construction is much wider than in Indo-European, in
fact infinite, therefore the possessive affixes can express any kind of association between the
host noun and another entity. This entity must be already established in the discourse or the
situation of speech by the time of the utterance, so such constructions share one important
property: the “possessor” is conceptualised first and serves as a cognitive reference-point for
establishing mental contact with the “possessed”.
How does this relate to identifiability? The reference-point analysis of possessive
constructions predicts that prototypically both the possessor and the possessed must be
identifiable (cf. Langacker 1993: 10-11). For the possessor this follows because it serves as a
reference-point, and the reference-point is defined as such because the interlocutors must
have its mental representation. Furthermore, the very nature of the possessive construction, as
defined here, ensures that the possessed noun is mentally accessible (that is identifiable)
through its relationship to the reference-point entity. Such entities are referred to as “indirect
anaphors” by Erkü and Gundel (1987).7 They are identifiable not because of their own role in
the discourse-internal or discourse-external world, but because of their pragmatic association
with another identifiable entity. So by encoding the reference-point relationship, the
possessive affix simultaneously encodes the identifiability of the possessed noun. In Uralic,
the identifying function of possessives has been partly generalized, so that possessive affixes
are even observable on those identifiable nouns for which no obvious reference-point is
available (for examples, on generic nouns). As suggested by Fraurud (2001), they may be
“anchored” to the linguistic or situational context itself, rather than to a particular referent
(the possessor).
The third (contrastive/emphatic) function of possessive affixes in Uralic is of a very
different nature, and I will not attempt discussing its grammaticalization path. It should be
noticed, however, that it is only present in the languages of the Volga basin, Udmurt, Komi
and Cheremis. There are strong reasons to believe that it is an innovation developed as a
result of language contacts. The emphatic/contrastive function of the 3rd person possessives
seems to have developed under the influence of the neighboring Turkic languages, Tatar and
Chuvash, where it is also attested (Serebrennikov 1963: 133). The fact that it is unknown in
other Uralic languages supports this hypothesis.
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1
When citing language examples I use the following convention. Data from the Cyrillicbased sources are transliterated. Examples cited from the Latin-based sources may be
slightly modified, according to standard transcriptional practice. Data from Northern Ostyak
and Nenets come from my own fieldwork. The former are written down in the standard
Ostyak transcription, while for the latter I use the phonological transcription developed in
Salminen (1997).
2
Abbreviations: ACC - accusative, CONV - converb, DAT - dative, DU – dual, FOC –
focus, GEN – genitive, IMP – imperative LOC - locative, NARR - narrative, NEG –
negation, PART – particle, PL - plural, SG – singular, TRANS - translative.
3
Note, however, that John’s wife typically has only one interpretation. That John’s car is
semantically ambiguous, in contrast to John’s wife, is due to the fact that car, unlike wife, is
16
not intrinsically relational. Its semantic structure is such that there is no exclusive candidate
for elaboration by the possessor nominal.
4
There are no obvious clear-cut borders between ownership possessives and associative
possessives. But at the extremes of the scale the two readings are fairly easily distinguishable.
In fact, some languages (Mayan, Tungus) mark this distinction by grammatical means.
5
Moreover, the interpretation of the possessive relation is ultimately related to the world
knowledge and the belief system of a particular linguistic community (cf. Taylor 1989).
6
According to my consultants, question 5 can be asked from the coming person herself if the
speaker wants to address her politely (a functional equivalent of the German polite Sie or
Russian Vy). In this case it can be translated as ‘Where did you come from?’
7
Cf. also “inferables”, that is, elements which are technically inactivated in the consciousness
of the interlocutors, but can be identified by an addressee through their relationship to an
activated element or to another inferable (Prince 1981, 1992; Gundel, Hedberg, and
Zacharski 1993, and others). Strictly speaking, inferability has to do with the activation status
of a referent, rather than identifiability (on the distinction between these two categories see,
for example, Lambrecht 1994). However, activation always implies identifiability (Gundel,
Hedberg and Zacharski 1993).