Marleen Van Peteghem

External vs. Internal Possessor Structures and Inalienability in Russian

This study deals with the choice between two external possessor structures in Russian: the possessive dative and the U + genitive PP. Is shows that this choice is primarily related to the thematic role of the possessor adjunct, which can vary with the same verb: the possessive dative presents it as a goal or as an experiencer, while the U-construction views it as a source or a location. Two general conclusions can be drawn from this study: - Russian views the possessive relation through its relationship with space. - Russian external possessor structures reflect two different delimitations of inalienable possession, one restricted to animate referents for the dative and one extended to a wide range of possessive relations including inanimate referents for the U-construction.

Possessives and grammaticalization in Romance

As is well known, the possessive paradigms of French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian contain three types of possessive: adjectives, determiners and pronouns. Comparing with the Latin system, from which all Romance possessive systems derive, two tendencies prevail: possessive pronouns tend to be eliminated, and possessive adjectives change into determiners or become defictive adjectives with a restricted distribution. However, the possessive system of each of these four languages appears to be different. The aim of the article is to examine the extent to which these differences are the result of different degrees of grammaticalization. We show that the possessive system in French is in the lead in terms of grammaticalization in that neither of its two paradigms any longer displays adjectival properties. The least grammaticalized system is the Italian, while Spanish and Romanian occupy intermediate positions: Spanish combines the French system of clitic forms with the Italian system of strong forms. As for Romanian, the dependence of the possessive form on the definite article or its substitute AL shows that it is more grammaticalized than the Italian possessive system.