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On the dual nature of the ‘possessive’ marker in Modern English

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 September 1997

ANNE ZRIBI-HERTZ
ANNE ZRIBI-HERTZ
Affiliation:
Author's address: Sciences du langage, Université Paris-8, 2 rue de la Liberté, 93526 Saint-Denis CEDEX 02, France. E-mail: [email protected] Université Paris-8
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Abstract

This paper shows, after Watkins (1967) and Tremblay (1989, 1991), that the possessive phrase of This is John's does not necessarily include an elliptical Possessee. This ambiguity is argued to arise from the dual nature of the possessive marker, which may either be inflectional or derivational in Modern English. In the first case, it may be analysed as a functional head, as proposed by Abney (1987) and Kayne (1993, 1994); in the second case, it operates in the lexicon, deriving possessive adjectives which exhibit complementary morphological and semantic properties in adnominal and predicate positions.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Linguistics , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , September 1997 , pp. 511 - 537
Copyright
1997 Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Previous drafts of this paper were presented in Newcastle at the 1995 Spring Meeting of the Linguistic Association of Great Britain, and at the Paris syntax roundtable organized by the GDR 120 (June 1995). I wish to thank the many colleagues who came up with interesting criticisms and suggestions on these two occasions. I am especially indebted to Denis Bouchard, Judy Delin, Jacqueline Guéron, Dick Hudson, Richie Kayne, Ora Matushansky, Keith Mitchell, Lea Nash, Fabrice Nicol, David Pesetsky, Jean-Yves Pollock and Nigel Vincent. Thanks also to Tara Fisher, Clive Perdue and Michele Sigler, who willingly accepted my linguistic harrassment in Paris. Last but not least, I must thank Ewa Jaworska and two anonymous JL referees for their most helpful and stimulating remarks.