Edited by Lars Johanson, Lidia Federica Mazzitelli and Irina Nevskaya
[Studies in Language Companion Series 206] 2019
► pp. 239–266
The article describes the functions and the usage of the genitive in Khinalug, a Nakh-Dagestanian language spoken in the North-East of Azerbaijan. Khinalug stands out for its tripartite genitive system with two subsystems: (a) a possessee-based subsystem, which distinguishes alienability versus certain types of inalienability according to the degree of bondedness towards the possessee; only animate possessors can take an inalienably marked possessee. (b) a possessor-based subsystem, which distinguishes alienability versus family-relatedness according to the bondedness among the members of the possessor group towards each other: They have to be in a family relationship to justify the use of this genitive. Moreover, independently from animacy, the alienable and the inalienable genitive are governed by a range of postpositions.