The present paper1 argues that an Optimality Theoretic framework may better handle the order of appearance of elements inside what is traditionally termed a possessive NP in English than approaches embedded in X-bar Theory. The syntax and semantics of examples of the type book of Frank, Frank’s book, book of Frank, the man living next door’s bike and the bike of the man living next door are examined. It is concluded that the terms “possessive” or “genitive”, “possessor”, “possessed” are in fact labels used for certain contextually dependent relations, that is to say, they mark elements participating in, and the relationship itself of, what nominals may enter with each other. This “freedom of relation” also includes the actual, true possessive relation as well, and markers (different morphemes) appear at boundaries between a “possessor” and a “possessed” to indicate where one ends the other begins.1This paper is a written version of the talk given on 2 June 2016 at ACED. I would like to thank Joseph Emonds, Alexandra Cornilescu, Lida Veselovska, Mark Newson, Carmen Dobrovie-Sorin, Larisa Avram, the editors, anonymous reviewers for the Bucharest Working Papers in Linguistics and the audience at the conference for their helpful comments.
Key words:
alignment syntax, conceptional units, freedom of choice for the possessive relation, Nominal Domain, Possessive Domain
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