The ins and outs of external possession: A micro-comparative perspective

Abstract

This thesis presents a study of external possession in varieties of Dutch. External possessors appear outside of the possessum phrase syntactically, whereas semantically, they are interpreted as the possessor of one of their co-arguments. In such structures, the possessive relation is typically not marked morphosyntactically. Other characteristics include the use of the definite article to introduce the possessum, and the possessor generally being a body part noun. The current study contributes to the empirical domain by giving a systematic overview of various external possessor constructions in Dutch dialects in different syntactic and semantic environments. In traditional terminology, this dissertation focuses on three types of external possessor constructions: (i) subject possessors, (ii) dative possessors and (iii) direct object possessors with the possessum embedded in a PP. The study aims to account for both the grammatical and geographic distribution of these constructions on the basis of data obtained by means of written questionnaires and oral interviews with dialect speakers. With respect to subject possessors, previous studies have reported that this construction is restricted to ‘gesture verbs’, but so far no explanatory account for this observation has been given. By investigating a comprehensive set of verbs, this study proposes an explanation for this restriction, analyzing the relevant verbs as unaccusatives. This analysis expresses the core intuition that subject possessor constructions express events in which the subject does something with her body part, instead of to it. In addition, the study is able to account for the widespread distribution of PP-possessa on the one hand and the more restricted distribution of dative possessors on the other. The preposition in PP-possessa is able to license the possessum. The case of dative possessors displays a clear division between the more eastern and western dialects. The use of dative possessors is highly limited in western varieties, whereas they are quite common in eastern dialects, which are situated along the German border. I argue that the eastern Dutch dialects share properties with the German language, which enables them to entertain dative possessors. These properties include a so-called ‘high applicative’ projection that is able to license the non-core dative argument and the possibility to license the dative argument by means of a silent preposition. An interesting contribution of this study is the confirmation that dative possessors are facilitated by a prepositional particle verb. In other words, more western dialects are capable of licensing a non-core dative argument when they are combined with a prepositional particle verb. Finally, this study is able to treat the three external possessor constructions in a unified way, in which the possessor and possessum are syntactically related to each other in a local relationship. In this unified approach I follow a specific analysis of definite articles from the literature, in which semantic definiteness is separated from the morphosyntactic form spelling out the definite article. I apply this insight to the external possessor constructions by arguing that the definite article introducing the possessum lacks a referential index. Rather, it inherits the referential features of the possessor.