Johnson 2004 - CDLI - UCLA

1.8 Ergative possessors and the transfer of possession model
The model underlying Pylkkänen’s low source applicative hypothesis is a transfer of
possession model, but rather than attempting to describe the model in abstract terms, I
would like to return to the Korean example (21) dealt with above, repeated below as (68).
(68) totwuk-i Mary-hanthey panci-lul humchi-ess-ta
thief-Nom Mary-Dat ring-Acc steal-Past-Plain
The thief stole a ring from Mary (and it was in her possession when he stole it)
In a transfer of possession model, the direct object of the verb starts out in a raised
possessor construction, in which the source or the starting point of the transfer is the
raised possessor, Mary-hanthey in (68), and the goal, recipient or endpoint of the transfer
is the subject of the sentence, totwuk-i in (68). The possessive relation at the beginning of
the event is coded through the use of a raised possessor construction, whereas the
possessive relation at the end of the event is part of the lexical meaning, “to steal,” of the
main verb: there are, therefore, in a rather special sense of the term, two predicates at
work in any particular low source applicative construction, both of which encode a
possessive relation of some kind. The Korean example, however, differs from the
foregoing Sumerian examples in that the lexical meaning of the vast majority of the
verbal roots used to form BNBV inal predicates in Sumerian encode, at most, existence in a
location (œal 2, œar, gub) or attachment (du 3, keß 2, te, dab 5, la 2, tag), if even that (dar, gar 3,
su 3, *tuk [derived from /œeßtug/ “ear,” not tuku “to possess”], du 3, œar, du 8, kar 2). Where
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