Anna Orlandini

-i and -osio genitives in archaic Latin: different markers for different possession types?

Abstract This contribution offers a concrete, textually based account of the functional possibilities for the expression of different types of possession (exclusive and inalienable “ownership” versus “accidental belonging,” established by convention or on an occasional event) in Archaic Latin. This account is based on the competition between the genitive-marking morphemes -i and -osio in archaic Faliscan inscriptions, which has been documented synchronically and for which we suggest a parallelism with the diachronic development of these two morphemes in Archaic Latin. We also confirm the theoretical insights concerning the semantic-functional structures that encode different possession relations and we propose an explanatory path for the generalization of the -ī versus -osio genitives (cf. Bolkestein 1983, 2001; Maurel 1989).