Universal 1586: possession regularly head-marked ⇒ opposition alienable/inalienable possession;
¬ opposition alienable/inalienable possession ⇒ possession regularly dependent-marked
- Original
- An opposition of “alienable” and “inalienable” possession is almost inevitable in languages where possession is regularly head-marked.
The alienable-inalienable opposition is almost never signaled by dependent-marked morphology.
- Standardized
- IF possession is regularly head-marked, THEN there will be an opposition of alienable and inalienable possession.
BY CONTRAPOSITION:
IF there is no opposition of alienable and inalienable possession, THEN possession is regularly dependent-marked . - Keywords
- possession, alienable, inalienable, head-marking, dependent-marking
- Domain
- inflection, syntax, semantics
- Type
- implication
- Status
- achronic
- Quality
- statistical
- Basis
- every language family and language isolate attested for North America (excluding only those six: Alsea, Beothuk, Cayuse, Kalapuyan, Molala, Yanan), also North Eurasian language families and several Australian languages
- Source
- Nichols 1988: 576, Nichols 1992: 119
- Counterexamples
1. Cf. #1589. 2. Klimov had a correlation between inalieanble possession and stative-active languages (#257). Nichols suggests a correlation between the alienability opposition and head-marking of possession. She explains the association with the stative-active type as follows: Since stative-active languages are generally head-marking (#437), it is to be expected that they will have head-marked possession in particular, and if they have head-marked possession it is to be expected that they will have an alienable/inalienable opposition. (Nichols 1992: 122)