Difference between revisions of "Possessive constructions in Norwegian"

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The notion Possessive construction here subsumes constructions with possessive pronouns, and with NPs with an -s attached at the end (without apostrophe). We describe these in turn.

Forms of Possessive pronouns

Possessive pronouns come in three patterns:

Pattern 1 uses essentially a personal pronoun plus -s (see Personal pronouns in Norwegian); these forms have no inflection reflecting the noun for the item possessed (as opposed to patterns 2 and 3):

 hans ('his'),
 hennes ('her'), 
 dens ('its'), when the noun for the possessor is masculine or feminine gender, 
 dets ('its'), when the noun for the possessor is neuter gender, 
 dennes ('this one's'), when the noun for the possessor is masculine or feminine gender,
 dettes ('that one's'), when the noun for the possessor is neuter gender, 
 deres (your', plural), when the possessor is second person (the ones talked to), 
       OR
        ('their', plural), when the possessor is third person (what is talked about).

Pattern 2 is constituted by

 min ('my'), when the possessor is first person singular,
 din ('your') when the possessor is second person singular,
 sin (reflexive 'his', 'her') when the possessor is third person singular, 

and these forms inflect as follows reflecting the noun for the item possessed:

when the noun for the item possessed is a masculine singular noun:  min,  din,  sin
when the noun for the item possessed is a feminine singular noun: mi,  di,  si
when the noun for the item possessed is a neuter singular noun: mitt, ditt, sitt
when the noun for the item possessed is a plural noun, any gender: mine, dine, sine

Pattern 3 has one item, vår ('our'), for first person plural, which has the pattern: .

when the noun for the item possessed is a masculine singular noun:  vår
when the noun for the item possessed is a feminine singular noun: vår
when the noun for the item possessed is a neuter singular noun: vårt
when the noun for the item possessed is a plural noun, any gender: våre

Constructions using possessive pronouns

1. 'Possessive pronouns occurring before the noun

Possessive pronouns occupy the position otherwise held by the definite article, and they may be said to induce a definiteness effect in that they require the weak form of the adjective. Contrary to the definite article, however, the ensuing noun has to be in indefinite form.

In the display below (here PNposs stands for the word class 'possessive pronoun', which mine belongs to), note that when the first example includes

min	e
1sg	PL
PNposs

where 'sg' means 'singular' and 'PL' means 'plural', this is no contradiction: the non-colored '1sg' expresses that the item referred to is the speaker, and a single person, whereas 'PL' in blue-colored script means that mine stands in an agreement relation to a plural noun:

In general, the 'blue' items reflect properties of grammatical form, and the 'green' items are word classes ('parts of speech' - POS), whereas the non-colored parts expose meaning and the spelled form. When in the description of the word min in the last example, meaning and blue stand together as follows,

1sgSG

that is because the form min is not split in two parts (morphs) where one gives the meaning '1sg' and the other the grammatical form 'singular' - here the form min counts by itself as an expression both of the meaning 'speaker, singular' and of the grammatical property 'singular', and in such a case the two symbols stand without space between them.

The same principle applies in the annotation of the noun griser

griser
gris	er
pig	PL.MASC.INDEF
N

where in this case the inflection morph er contains all of the information plural, masculine and indefinite, symbolised by the blue expressions PL, MASC, and INDEF, separated only by a dot (which may not be visible).

'2. 'Possessive pronouns occurring after the noun

For possessive pronouns, another position of occurrence is immediately after the noun, which then has to be in definite form:

3. Possessive pronoun occurring behind a possessor NP, and before the noun

This construction is illustrated below: a full NP comes first, then the third person reflexive possessive pronoun, and then the 'possessed' noun.

Possessive NPs with -s or with a preposition

The first example shows a proper name with the -s attached, preceding the 'possessed' noun. Notice that there is no apostrophe between the proper name and the -s:

The next example shows the same pattern, but now with a whole noun phrase preceding the -s; the -s simply attaches to the last word of the noun phrase, no matter what it happens to be:

The following example shows that once one is using this pattern, an adjective between the possessive NP and the possessed noun must be in definite form, whereas the possessed noun has no definite article attached; this is like in the first pattern with possessive pronouns:

The last example illustrates a pattern where the possessive noun phrase follows a preposition, this prepositional phrase following the 'possessed' noun. If an article and adjective is used, they must be in definite form.

Related pages

The Noun Phrase - Norwegian

Agreement in Norwegian noun phrases

Definite determiners in Norwegian

Gender in Norwegian nouns

Coordination marking in Norwegian

Sentence syntax - Norwegian

Subject-Verb Inversion in Norwegian

Sentence adverbials in Norwegian

Verb Complementation - Norwegian

Infinitives in Norwegian

Past and Perfective patterns in Norwegian

Personal pronouns in Norwegian

Reflexives - Norwegian

--Lars Hellan (talk) 21:04, 27 December 2015 (CET)