Possession: Cognitive Sources, Forces, and Grammaticalization

by Bernd Heine

Overview

Bernd Heine argues that the structure of grammatical categories is predictable to a large extent once we know the range of possible cognitive structures from which they are derived. The author uses as his example the structure of predicative possession, and shows how most of the possessive constructions to be found in the world's languages can be traced back to a small set of basic conceptual patterns. Using grammaticalization theory Heine describes how each affects the word order and morphosyntax of the resulting possessive construction.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521024136
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	02/13/2006
Series:	Cambridge Studies in Linguistics , #83
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	292
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 8.98(h) x 0.71(d)

Table of Contents

List of tables and figures; Preface; Abbreviations; 1. The state; 2. The process; 3. On attributive possession; 4. From possession to aspect; 5. Evaluation; Appendix; References; Indexes.