(Meadow Mari)
PredPossGen +SpecPssd
PredPossGen: The possessed is the functional and/or grammatical subject, the verb is intransitive, and the possessor appears in a non-locative, non-lative form (the form used to answer the question Whose?). This is often the same as the adnominal form of the possessor in possessive constructions, frequently the genitive.
+SpecPssd: The possessed appears in a special form. (For example, it may appear with a personal possessive marker.)
| (1) | miša-n | mašina-že | ul-o. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Misha‑GEN | car‑3SG | be‑3SG | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ’Misha has a car.’ (Riese et al. 2022: 306) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (2) | poškud-em-wlak-ən | mašina-št | ul-o. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| neighbor‑1SG‑PL‑GEN | car‑3PL | be‑3SG | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ’My neighbors have a car.’ (Riese et al. 2022: 306) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Meadow Mari has no possessive “habeo-verb”. In habitive sentences the nominal possessor is in genitive case, while the possessee is in nominative. The possessee bears a suffix encoding the person and number of the possessor. Occasionally this possessive suffix can be absent, but in the standard variety of the language it is regarded as ungrammatical (Riese et al. 2022: 306).
Author: Bogáta Timár