Obligatory possession is a

linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

phenomenon that is common in languages whose nouns are inflected for possessor, and some words, commonly kinship terms and body parts, cannot occur without a possessor in those languages. The

World Atlas of Language Structures The World Atlas of Language Structures (WALS) is a database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials. It was first published by Oxford University Press as a book with CD-RO ...

(WALS)World Atlas of Language Structures Online
/ref> lists 43 languages in its 244 language sample as having obligatory possession.WALS Feature 58
/ref> Languages with obligatory possession are concentrated in New Guinea and in North and South America. Generally, obligatory possession is found throughout a family (such as

Algonquian languages The Algonquian languages ( or ; also Algonkian) are a subfamily of indigenous American languages that include most languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically simi ...

, represented by Plains Cree in the WALS sample, and

Mayan languages The Mayan languagesIn linguistics, it is conventional to use ''Mayan'' when referring to the languages, or an aspect of a language. In other academic fields, ''Maya'' is the preferred usage, serving as both a singular and plural noun, and as ...

represented by Tzutujil in the WALS sample), but not all

Athabaskan languages Athabaskan (also spelled ''Athabascan'', ''Athapaskan'' or ''Athapascan'', and also known as Dene) is a large family of indigenous languages of North America, located in western North America in three areal language groups: Northern, Pacific C ...

have it.

Slavey The Slavey (also Slave and South Slavey) are a First Nations indigenous peoples of the Dene group, indigenous to the Great Slave Lake region, in Canada's Northwest Territories, and extending into northeastern British Columbia and northwestern ...

does not have obligatory possessionRice, Keren 1989 ''A Grammar of Slave''. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter
/ref> but Navajo has it.Young, Robert W. and Morgan, William 1987 ''The Navajo Language: A Grammar and Colloquial Dictionary''. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press
/ref> Obligatory possession is also present in the language isolate Haida.

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

has it for ''

own Ownership is the state or fact of legal possession and control over property, which may be any asset, tangible or intangible. Ownership can involve multiple rights, collectively referred to as title, which may be separated and held by different ...

'' as an adjective: ''one's own body'' not ''*an own body''. Obligatory possession is sometimes called ''inalienable possession''. However, true

inalienable possession In linguistics, inalienable possession (abbreviated ) is a type of possession in which a noun is obligatorily possessed by its possessor. Nouns or nominal affixes in an inalienable possession relationship cannot exist independently or be "ali ...

is a semantic notion, largely dependent on how a culture structures the world, whereas obligatory possession is a property of morphemes.WALS Chapter 59 sect 3
/ref> In general, nouns with the property of requiring obligatory possession are notionally inalienably possessed, but the relation is rarely, if ever, perfect.

References

Grammar Genitive construction {{grammar-stub

See also

References