The Object of My POSSession

The puzzle addressed here is the appearance of the POSS sign, pictured at right above, in both attributive (1a) and predicative (2b) possessive constructions.2 Patterns in the morphosyntax and semantics of POSS possessives reveal that the underlying function of POSS across these constructions is that of a verbal predicate. The analysis of POSS as a verbal predicate is transparently supported by its predicative use and is unproblematic for its appearance in attributive possessives, the latter of which receive a principled account as an instance of (reduced) relative clause modification of the possessee. While this approach contrasts with more traditional descriptions of POSS as a possessive pronoun, it parallels approaches that derive possessives from small clause predication structures (den Dikken, 2006) and sheds light on the origin and extent of symmetry in the encoding of possession in nominal and clausal domains.