Genitives and the creolization question

English Partitives and Double Genitives

Barker (1998) proposes that the of in (1a) is semantically similar to the of in (1b) and different from the of in (2). I take this a step further and suggest that the of in (1a) is the same as the of in (1b). I also show that, while the proposal of Barker (1998) requires additional stipulations (Storto (2000)), my proposal correctly predicts some differences between the partitive and the double...

Discontinuous Genitives in Hindi/Urdu

This paper discusses genitive phrases in Hindi/Urdu in general and puts a particular focus on genitive scrambling, a process whereby the basic order of constituents is changed. In Hindi/Urdu, genitive phrases may not only occur at different structural positions within the NP that they modify; under the right circumstances, they can also be found outside of the NP, yielding discontinuous structu...

Genitives, relational nouns, and argument-modifier ambiguity

The argument-modifier distinction is less clear i n NPs than in VPs since nouns do not typically take arguments. The clearest cases of arguments in NPs are found in certain kinds of nominalizations which retain some “verbal” properties (Grimshaw 1990). The status of apparent arguments of non-deverbal relational nouns like sister is more controversial. Genitive constructions like John’s teacher,...

On the Role of Grammaticalization in Creolization

Acquisition of English Prenominal and Postnominal Genitives

This study examined the acquisition of prenominal and postnominal genitives by Iranian EFL learners. Two variables were considered: possessive categories and language proficiency. We considered the influence of possessive categories such as lexical modifier, semantic relationship, and weight and syntactic complexity on genitive alternations by Iranian EFL learners. Also, we examined whether the...