Prominent possessor indexing in Gurindji

Abstract

In Gurindji (Ngumpin-Yapa; Australia) bound forms that index the morphosyntactic features of predicate arguments can also index possessors. In prominent alienable possession constructions, internal possessors that are structural dependents of their possessive phrase are indexed for person and number when sufficiently discourse-prominent (e.g. when contrastively focussed), but otherwise do not trigger agreement. In contrast, possessors in inalienable possession constructions are always indexed by agreement clitics. This chapter proposes that examples of this type are not only semantically different from constructions with phrase-internal alienable possessors, but are also structurally different. While Gurindji presents us with genuine examples of prominent internal possessors, inalienable possessors in Gurindji are neither internal nor external possession in a syntactic sense, but rather are best seen as a third type of possession characterized by apposition.