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THE DOMAIN OF PREDICATIVE POSSESSION IN KAZYM AND TEGI

V. Vorobeva, I. Novitskaya

Abstract

The article presents research outcomes of the strategies and ways used to encode predicative possession in two vernaculars of Khanty: in the Kazym dialect and the Tegi subdialect of Kazym. Data for analysis – 54 texts totaling in 4112 sentences – have been elicited mainly from the text corpus of West Khanty dialects. The present study of possessive constructions in Kazym dialects is conducted within the methodology of the functional theory of grammar. In Kazym and Tegi, three predictive constructions for coding possession can be used: transitive, locative and unmarked adnominal ones. The most common strategy used for encoding possession is a transitive one based on the verb t?j- ‘have’ (in which the verb is used in the forms of the objective conjugation) that enables one to express the main conceptual features of possession (abstract, physical/temporal, alienable, and inalienable). Both animate and inanimate possessors have been found in this type of construction that can undergo some structural variations. The number of examples representing this strategy is 59 out of 2197 sentences in Kazym dialect and 47 out of 1915 – in Tegi subdialect. The intransitive strategy that encompasses unmarked adnominal possessive and locative constructions is based on the locative/existential sentence with the existential verb kaz. w?(?)-, teg. wuo(?)- ‘be’. The unmarked adnominal construction encodes possessive and existential or/and spatial relations simultaneously. It allows some structural variants and can be used either with the copula or without it. The locative construction, in which the possessor is followed by a postpositive element ???a with a spatial meaning, is commonly used to encode temporal possession. Both constructions of intransitive strategy are infrequent in the analyzed dialect: only 4 cases in the Kazym dialect and 2 cases – in Tegi. Negative possession is encoded differently in the transitive and intransitive types of construction. While a symmetrically “standard” negation expressed by the negative particle ?n(t) ‘no, not’ is used in the transitive construction, a special negative existential predicate kaz. ?nt?(m), teg. ?ntuo(m) is common in both intransitive constructions. The verb t?j- can also be used in the forms of the objective and passive conjugation that are helpful to convey the idea of keeping, wearing, holding, etc. i.e. the idea of non-possessive relations.

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