Cover not available
Part of
Possession in Languages of Europe and North and Central Asia
Edited by Lars Johanson, Lidia Federica Mazzitelli and Irina Nevskaya
[Studies in Language Companion Series 206] 2019
► pp. 291–312

Grammaticalization of possessive markers in the Beserman dialect of Udmurt

| Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences
| Institute of Linguistics, Russian Academy of Sciences
| Universität Hamburg
The paper is focused on the functions of possessive suffixes in the Beserman dialect of Udmurt. Considering the data from the Beserman corpus of oral texts we find the parameters influencing the presence/omission of the possessive suffixes in the contexts of possessive (alienable and inalienable) and non-possessive contexts. We review the claim about the grammaticalization of the Beserman possessives into markers of definiteness, and suggest that they are subject to pragmaticization in terms of Fried (2009).
Keywords: Beserman dialect of Udmurt (Uralic), possessive suffixes, alienable and inalienable possession, grammaticalization, definiteness
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Possessive morphemes in Uralic and in Beserman Udmurt
  • 3.Distribution of possessive markers with possessive function
    • 3.1Forms of possessive markers in Beserman
    • 3.2Distribution of alienable and inalienable sets of possessive markers
    • 3.3Obligatoriness and frequency of possessive markers
  • 4.Distribution of possessive markers with non-possessive function
    • 4.1Non-possessive functions of the possessive markers
    • 4.2The hypothesis of grammaticalization of possessive markers into articles
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Abbreviations
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 5 March 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.206.14ser
References (40)
References
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y. & Dixon, R. M. W. 2013. Possession and Ownership: A Cross-linguistic Typology. Oxford: OUP.Google Scholar
Alatyrev, Vasiliy I. 1970. Vydelitelno-ukazatelnaya kategoriya v udmurtskom jazyke (The restrictive demonstrative category in Udmurt). Izhevsk: Udmurt Institute of History, Economics, Literature and Language.Google Scholar
Alatyrev, Vasily I. 1983. Kratkiy grammaticheskiy ocherk udmurtskogo yazyka (A brief grammatical sketch of Udmurt). Udmurt-Russian Dictionary, 561–591. Moscow: Russkiy yazyk.Google Scholar
Chafe, Wallace. 1994. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Collinder, Björn. 1960. Comparative Grammar of the Uralic Languages. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
. 1957. Survey of the Uralic Languages. Stockholm: Almkvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
DeLancey, Scott. 1997. Grammaticalization and the gradience of categories. Relator nouns and postpositions in Tibetan and Burmese. In Essays on Language Function and Language Type, Joan L. Bybee, John Haiman & Sandra A. Thompson (eds.), 51–69. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Décsy, Gyula. 1990. The Uralic Protolanguage: A Comprehensive Reconstruction. Bloomington IN: Eurolingua.Google Scholar
Fraurud, Kari. 2001. Possessives with extensive use: A source of definite articles? In Dimensions of Possession [Typological Studies in Language 47], Irène Baron, Michael Herslund & Finn Sørensen (eds), 243–267. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fried, Mirjam. 2009. Construction Grammar as a tool for diachronic analysis. Constructions and Frames 1 (2): 262–291. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gerland, Doris. 2014. Definitely not possessed? Possessive suffixes with definiteness marking function. In Frames and Concept Types. Applications in Language and Philosophy [Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy 94], Thomas Gamerschlag, Doris Gerland, Rainer Osswald & Wiebke Petersen (eds), 269–292. Cham: Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Geurts, Bart. 1998. Presuppositions and anaphors in attitude contexts. Linguistics and Philosophy 21: 545–601. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, Talmy (ed.). 1983. Topic Continuity in Discourse: A Quantitative Cross-Language Study [Typological Studies in Language 3]. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hawkins, John. 1978. Definiteness and Indefiniteness. London: Croom Helm.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernard. 1997. Possession: Cognitive Sources, Forces and Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper Paul J. & Traugott, Elizabeth Closs. 2003. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johanson, Lars & Csató, Éva Á. 1998. The Turkic. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kibrik, Andrey A. 2011. Reference in Discourse. Oxford: OUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Klumpp, Gerson. 2008. Differentielle Objektmarkierung & Informationsstruktur in Dialekten des Komi. Ms, Munich.Google Scholar
Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria. 2002. Adnominal possession in the European languages: Form and function. STUF – Language Typology and Universals 55(2): 141–172.Google Scholar
Künnap, Ago. 2006. Historically Problematic Morphosyntactic Features in Uralic Languages. Munich: Lincom.Google Scholar
Kuznetsova, Ariadna I. 2003. Kumulaciya grammaticheskix znachenij v agglutinativnyx pokazatelax: Deikticheskiye funkcii posessiva v uralskix jazykax (Several grammatical meanings in agglutinative markers: Deictic functions of possessive markers in Uralic). In Finno-ugorskije jazyki: fragmenty grammaticheskogo opisanija, Formalnyj i funkcionalnyj podkhody (Finno-Ugric languages: Fragments of grammatical description. Formal and functional approaches), Ariadna I. Kuznetsova e.a. (eds), 250–262. Moscow: Russkiye slovari.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian. 2015. Thoughts on Grammaticalization, 3rd edn [Classics in Linguistics 1]. Berlin: Language Science Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mithun, Marianne. 1999. The Languages of Native North America. Cambridge: CUP.Google Scholar
Nichols, Johanna & Bickel, Balthasar. 2013. Possessive classification. In The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath (eds). Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. <[URL]> (23 February 2016).Google Scholar
Nikolaeva, Irina A. 2003. Possessive affixes as markers of information structuring: Evidence from Uralic. In International Symposium on Deictic Systems and Quantification in Languages Spoken in Europe and North and Central Asia. Collection of papers, Pirkko Suihkonen & Bernard Comrie (eds), 130–145. Izhevsk & Leipzig: Udmurt State University & Max Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology.Google Scholar
Plungian, Vladimir A. 2011. Vvedeniye v grammaticheskuyu semantiku: Grammaticheskiye znacheniya i grammaticheskiye sistemy jazykov mira (Introduction into grammatical semantics: Grammatical meanings and grammatical system of the world’s languages). Moscow: RSUH.Google Scholar
Prince, Ellen F. 1981. Toward a taxonomy of given-new information. In Radical Pragmatics, Peter Cole (ed.), 223–255. New York NY: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rubin, Aaron D. 2010: The development of the Amharic definite article and an Indonesian parallel. Journal of Semitic Studies 55(1): 103–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schlachter, Wolfgang. 1960. Studien zum Possessivsuffix des Syrjänischen. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.Google Scholar
Serdobolskaya, Natalia V. & Toldova, Svetlana Ju. 2012. Differencirovannoye markirovaniye pryamogo dopolneniya v finno-ugorskix jazykax (Differential object marking in Finno-Ugric languages). In Finno-ugorskiye jazyki: Fragmenty grammaticheskogo opisaniya. Formalnyj i funkcionalnyj podxody (Finno-ugric languages: fragments of grammartical description. Formal and functional approaches), Ariadna I. Kuznetsova e.a. (ed.), 59–142. Moscow: Jazyki slavyanskix kultur.Google Scholar
Siegl, Florian. 2015. The structure of noun phrases with referential Px.2p in Northern Samoyedic. Tomsk Journal of Linguistic and Anthropology 1(7): 21–31.Google Scholar
Spencer, Andrew & Luís, Ana R. 2012. Clitics: An Introduction. Cambridge: CUP. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Starosta, Stan. 1985. Relator nouns as a source of case inflection. In For Gordon H. Fairbanks, Veneeta Z. Acson, & Richard L. Leed (eds), 111–133. Honolulu HI: University Press of Hawaii.Google Scholar
Suihkonen, Pirkko. 2005. On the categories and functions developed from the possessive and deictic suffixes in Udmurt. Lihkkun lehkos! Beiträge zur Finnougristik aus Anlaß des sechzigsten Geburtstages von Hans-Hermann Bartens, Cornelius Hasselblatt, Eino Koponen & Anna Widmer (eds), 401–432. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Tauli, Valter. 1966. Structural Tendencies in Uralic Languages [Indiana University Publications; Uralic and Altaic Series 17]. The Hague: Mouton.Google Scholar
von Heusinger, Klaus & Kornfilt, Jaklin. 2005. The case of the direct object in Turkish: Semantics, syntax and morphology. Turkic Languages 9: 3–44.Google Scholar
Winkler, Eberhard. 2011. Udmurtische Grammatik. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar
Yedygarova, Svetlana. 2010. Kategoriya posessivnosti v udmurtskom yazyke (The category of possession in Udmurt). PhD dissertation. Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus.Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Usacheva, Maria & Natalia Serdobolskaya
2024. A new converb originating from the locative noun in Beserman. Studies in Language 48:2 ► pp. 472 ff. DOI logo
Serdobolskaya, Natalia & Maria Usacheva
2023. Pseudopartitive constructions are not a subtype of nominal juxtaposition in Beserman. Journal of Uralic Linguistics 2:2 ► pp. 241 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 27 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.