Dimensions of Possession - elchacocomoarealinguistica

274 A. Machtelt Bolkesteinb. errare humanum ducoto err human I consider‘I consider erring (to be) human’(9) hanc pecuniam tuam/patris faciothis money yours/father-gen I make‘I make this money your’s/father’s’It is impossible to either replace the dative in (1b) by an adjective, or to find adative as Object complement in constructions such as (7)–(9). Note, however,that the so-called Dativus Finalis or Predicative dative of abstract nouns doesin fact function as a predicate, and may therefore occur in such constructions:(10) a. hoc tibi laudi estthis you-dat praise-dat is‘This is for you a reason to be praised, makes you praiseworthy’b. hoc tibi laudi ducothis you-dat praise-dat I consider‘I deem this to be a reason to be praised for you, to make you praiseworthy’In contrast, in the case of (1b), the dative Possessor does not predicate aproperty of the Possessee, but is one of the two participants involved in thestate of affairs. This state of affairs may, but need not be an existential one: itmay also be a locative, or a copular one (due to the fact that in Latin existential‘be’ and copular ‘be’ are the same verb, that definiteness is not expressedand that word order is flexible, the surface structure in the latter case isambiguous between an existential reading, with the adjective functioning as asecond restrictor within the noun phrase (c¹), and the copular reading with theadjectival predicate as Subject complement (c):(11) a. puero liber est{EXIST} (x 1 :liber) 0 (x 2 :puer) ‘Poss’‘The boy has a book’b. puero liber in villa est{villa Loc} (x 1 :liber) 0 (x 2 :puer) ‘Poss’‘The boy has a book in the villa’c. puero liber carus estcarus (x 1 :liber) 0 (x 2 :puer) ‘Poss’‘The boy has a cherished book’ [alternative interpretation: ‘ the bookis dear to the boy’]