This thesis investigates the representation of Possession both in the lexicon and syntax within the Government and Binding framework. The relevant data come primarily from nominal and copular possessive constructions in French. / It is argued that the canonical realization for possessive NPs in French is the postnominal dative construction: (N NP$ sb{ rm +DAT /}$). Such dative phrases need not be governed by the licensing head; dative case is a default Case in French and the dative NP can be licensed under predication. This follows from the dyadic nature of the possessive relation which triggers binary branching at all levels of representation. / It is further argued that French has two copulas: avoir and etre. Their distributional difference follows from the fact that avoir is a Case assigner. This proposal allows for a unified analysis of possessive etre and avoir constructions in terms of Case. / Extending to ditransitive constructions, alternations of internal arguments can be accounted for if one posits that internal arguments must be thematically linked. The two internal arguments form a Small Clause, and their respective order follows from the nature of their thematic link.

The goal of this thesis is to provide a syntactic analysis of the possessive constructions in NCN, a Southern Wakashan language. This thesis adopts a broadly minimalist perspective (Chomsky 1995) and draws on primary data from native speakers intuitions in addition to published sources. Elicited data come mainly from speakers of the Ahousaht dialect, which is spoken on Flores Island, British Columbia. I discuss three types of possessive constructions: (i) possessed DPs (ii) possessed nominal predicates (iii) possessor raising The third type, possessor raising, is of special interest: A possessive marker referring to a possessed subject DP can attach to that subject's predicate. Subject agreement on the predicate then indexes the possessor, not the possessed subject. Unlike in other types of possession, the possessor and its possessum do not form a single constituent. In contrast to parallel structures cross-linguistically, Nuu-chah-nulth possessor raising can occur only from possessed subjects, but it is otherwise unrestricted by possessor or predicate type. I propose for Nuu-chah-nulth that the possessive morpheme corresponds to a possessive head in the functional architecture of either the DP or clausal domain. Both the Possessive Phrase and a possessor DP are associated with a possessive feature. Where the possessive marker is generated above a possessed subject DP, the possessor must raise out of it in order to check this feature. I furthermore adopt the theory of multiple feature checking (Ura 1996), such that the possessor DP may be associated with both a possessive and a set of agreement (<J>) features. This allows the possessor to raise further, and check its agreement features with the head that hosts subject inflection. By occupying this higher position the possessor determines inflection structurally, without being directly linked to the external argument of the predicate. This analysis suggests that the notion of "subject" is split between at least two syntactic positions. Evidence illustrating clear subject-object asymmetries as well as data suggesting A-movement of the possessor supports a configurational, rather than discourse-driven, view of Nuu-chah-nulth grammar. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

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This study is an analysis of the nature of possession in siSwati from a socio-cultural perspective. The study seeks to uncover how possession is expressed in siSwati and also the socio-cultural traits of the Swazi people that are revealed through possession. A written corpus was used to collect the requisite data and the relevant data was subsequently analysed. The study adopted systematic functional linguistic and sociolinguistic approaches to analyse the nature of possession in siSwati / African Languages / M. A. (African Languages)

La présente étude, faisant l’objet d’une thèse de doctorat, a trait à l’analyse diachronique et psychosystématique des possessifs et de la représentation spatiale en italien, français et roumain. Ce travail s’assigne l’objectif d’étudier et d’aider à mieux comprendre l’expression de l’appartenance dans les langues italienne et, par contraste, française et roumaine, en nous intéressant aux implications que cela peut avoir sur la représentation de la personne dans chacune de ces trois langues romanes. L’étude que nous nous proposons de mener a pour objet l’analyse des systèmes de langue considérés, systèmes cohérents et clos, préalables à tout emploi que les individus qui, naturellement en disposent, pourraient en faire. L’analyse des effets de sens dans le discours, rendue possible par l’élaboration d’un corpus dont certains items déroutent parfois l’initié, sont autant d’occasions de mieux comprendre la cohésion du système de langue considéré. / This study as a doctoral thesis, deals with the analysis of diachronic and psychosystematic possessives and with spatial representation in the Italian, French and Romanian languages. The goal of this work is to study and to better understand the expression of membership in the Italian language opposing to French and Romanian ones, while focusing on the implication that they may have on the representation of the person in each of the three languages. This work focuses on a system analysis of language considered as a coherent and closed one, prior to any uses which is inner to each person that could deal with it. The analysis of meaning effects in speeches, which was made possible by the development of a corpus that some items can sometimes confuse the initiate, provides opportunities to better understand the cohesion of the language system considered.

This thesis discusses four selected topics on Yoruba nominal expressions: the syntax of possessives, the construal of bare nouns, the marking of specificity and salience, and plural marking strategies. Regarding possessives, it is proposed that they have one base structure (a v P shell). The difference in surface linear order between verbal and nominal genitives is determined by which of the two arguments move. In nominal genitives, the possessum moves. In verbal genitives, it is the possessor that moves. Regarding the interpretation of Yoruba bare nouns, it is shown that they can be construed in one of three ways: as generics, as indefinites, or as definites. First, generics may be lexically conditioned (with permanent state predicates) or grammatically conditioned (with transitory predicates through the use of imperfective maa-n). Second, wherever a generic construal is illicit, an indefinite construal is licit. Third, definite construals are discourse-linked. Regarding specificity, it is shown that Yoruba overtly marks specificity on NPs with the element kan. Regarding salience, it is shown that definite DPs are morphologically marked as salient (by virtue of being unique, in an identity relation or additive) through the use of ndd. Finally, regarding plural marking, it is shown that Yoruba uses three different strategies: contextually, semantically, or morphologically determined plurality. It is proposed that the deployment of the PLURAL feature is determined by feature percolation or feature matching. / Arts, Faculty of / Linguistics, Department of / Graduate

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The study focused on three descriptive nominal modifiers which specify the attributes of nouns, i.e. the morphological adjective, the relative clause and the descriptive possessive. The morphological adjective appears in an adjectival phrase, which has to consist of a determiner and an adjective. The adjective must have agreement with the head noun in an NP. The adjective root may appear with nominal suffixes such as -ana and -gadi, it can be reduplicated, it may be transposed to other categories and it may even be compounded. The AP may also occur in predicative position as well as in comparative clauses. The relative clause may have the same semantic properties as the adjective. The relative clause in Setswana consists of a determiner in the position of the complementizer followed by an lP. Such an lP may have a copulative or non-copulative verb. Attention in this study has focused on the nominal relative, which appears as a complement of a copulative verb. These nominal relative stems have been divided into two sections, i.e. a section in which the nominal relative stems may not appear in a descriptive possessive construction and a second section where these stems may also appear as a complement of the possessive [a]. The semantic features of these nominal relative stems have been isolated and it is clear that they show a wide variety of semantic features. This type of relative clause represents the most prolific category, which specifies the attributes of nouns. The third category, which displays the semantic feature of an attribute of a noun, is the descriptive possessive construction. The syntactic and semantic structure of this type of phrase has been investigated. A wide variety of complements of the possessive [a] have been isolated in Setswana and some semantic features have received specific attention, i.e. group nouns and partitives. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die studie fokus op drie deskriptiewe nominale bepalers wat die attribute van naamwoorde spesifiseer nl. die morfologiese adjektief, die relatief en die deskriptiewe possessief. Die morfologiese adjektief kom voor in 'n adjektieffrase wat bestaan uit 'n bepaler en 'n adjektief. Die adjektief moet klasooreenstemming hê met die kernnaamwoord in 'n naamwoordfrase. Die adjektiefstam kan voorkom met nominale suffikse soos ana en gadi, dit kan geredupliseer word, oorgeplaas word na ander kategorieë en selfs samestellings vorm. Die adjektieffrase kan ook voorkom in 'n predikatiewe posisie sowel as in vergelykings. Die relatief kan dieselfde semantiese eienskappe hê as die adjektief. Die relatief in Setswana bestaan uit 'n bepaler in die posisie van die komplementeerder gevolg deur 'n infleksiefrase. So 'n infleksiefrase kan 'n kopulatiewe of nie-kopulatiewe werkwoord bevat. Die aandag in hierdie studie het gekonsentreer op die nominale relatief wat voorkom as 'n komplement van 'n kopulatiewe werkwoord. Hierdie nominale relatiewe stamme is verdeel in twee afdelings nl. 'n afdeling waarin die nominale relatiewe stamme nie kan voorkom in 'n deskriptiewe possessiewe konstruksie en 'n tweede afdeling waar hierdie stamme ook kan voorkom as 'n komplement van die possessiewe [a]. Die semantiese kenmerke van hierdie nominale relatiewe stamme is geïsoleer en dit is duidelik dat hulle 'n wye verskeidenheid van semantiese kenmerke het. Hierdie tipe relatief verteenwoordig In baie wye keuse t.o.v. die attribute van naamwoorde. Die derde kategorie wat die semantiese kenmerk van 'n attribuut van 'n naamwoord vertoon, is die deskriptiewe possessiewe konstruksie. Die sintaktiese en semantiese struktuur van hierdie tipe frase is nagegaan. 'n Groot verskeidenheid komplemente van die possessiewe [a] is geïsoleer in Setswana en sommige semantiese kenmerke het spesifieke aandag gekry nl. groepnaamwoorde en partitiiewe.

Doctorat en philosophie et lettres / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished