Hostname: page-component-669899f699-7xsfk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-04-25T15:16:16.201Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The syntax of English genitive constructions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Christopher Lyons
Christopher Lyons
Affiliation:
University of Salford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

As is well known, English has two genitive or possessive constructions, the ‘proposed’ and the ‘postposed’, exemplified in (1).

In each case we have an NP, with a head N (book, office, dog, house, plants) modified by a possessive expression (John's, a man's, mine, etc.). This expression is itself an NP in the genitive Case, and I shall refer to it as the ‘genitive phrase’. By contrast with other familiar languages more highly inflected than English, genitive Case is hot marked by an inflection on the head of a genitive phrase, but by the clitic ’s, which is attached right at the end of the phrase. The exception is where the genitive phrase is not a full NP but a personal pronoun, in which case we get an inflected form (irregular in pattern) as in these other languages: I - my/mine, he - his, etc. These possessive forms of pronouns have almost identical distribution to that of full NPs in the genitive (there are some differences which I shall point to below), and so it seems clear that they are genitives, despite the morphological difference; personal pronouns are highly irregular morphologically anyway, and not only in English. This is assumed in all recent work I know of, and I shall take it to be uncontroversial.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 22 , Issue 1 , March 1986 , pp. 123 - 143
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

REFERENCES

Bresnan, J. (1982). Control and complementation. LIn 13. 343–434.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1972). Remarks on nominalization. In Studies on semantics in generative grammar. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1981). Lectures on government and binding. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Chomsky, N. (1984). Knowledge of language: its nature, origins and use. Unpublished MS.Google Scholar
Gazdar, G., Klein, E., Pullum, G. & Sag, I. (1985). Generalized phrase structure grammar. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hawkins, R. (1981). Towards an account of the possessive constructions: NP's N and the N of NP. JL 17. 247–269.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higginbotham, J. (1983). Logical form, binding, and nominals. LIn 14. 395–420.Google Scholar
Hornstein, N. & Lightfoot, D. (1981). Introduction to Explanation in linguistics: the logical problem of language acquisition. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1977). X¯ syntax: a study of phrase structure. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press.Google Scholar
Lyons, C. (1985a). A possessive parameter. Sheffield Working Papers in Linguistics.Google Scholar
Lyons, C. (1985b). Phrase structure, possessives and definiteness. Unpublished MS.Google Scholar
Partee, B. H. (1983). Compositionality. Draft.Google Scholar
Perlmutter, D. M. (1970). On the article in English. In Bierwisch, M. & Heidolph, K. E. (eds), Progress in Linguistics. The Hague: Mouton. 233–248.Google Scholar
Rappaport, M. (1983). On the nature of derived nominals. In Levin, L., Rappaport, M. & Zaenen, A. (eds), Papers in lexical-functional grammar. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club.Google Scholar
Rothstein, S. D. (1985). Predication and syntax. Unpublished MS.Google Scholar
Selkirk, E. (1977). Some remarks on noun phrase structure. In Culicover, P., Wasow, T. & Akmajian, A. (eds), Formal syntax. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Williams, E. (1982). The NP cycle. LIn 13. 277–295.Google Scholar
Zubizarreta, M. L. (1985). The relation between morphophonology and morphosyntax: the case of Romance causatives. LIn 16. 247–289.Google Scholar