The expression of predicative Possession in Lithuanian (STUF 66:4, 2014, 354-377)

Lidia Federica Mazzitelli (Bremen)

The expression of predicative Possession in Lithuanian*

Abstract

The object of this paper are the linguistic means used in Lithuanian to express predicative Possession.The possessive constructions are individuated and described, as along with the semantic constraints thatfavor or disfavor their use. It is claimed that the evidence provided in this paper confirms what Cinclej(1990) stated: Lithuanian should be considered as occupying a transitional position between the have-and the be-languages, contra Isacenko (1974), who considered it as a pure have-language. The role thatlanguage contact may have played in determining the Lithuanian way of expressing Possession is alsoconsidered.

Keywords: predicative possession, tureti ‘have’, asymmetrical relationship, conceptualization, topicaliz-ed genitive

1. Introduction

The aim of this paper is to present a description of the linguistic means used in Lithuan-ian to express the notion of Possession. The discussion will be limited, however, to thosecases, where the possessive relation is encoded at the sentential level – i.e. to cases of theso-called “predicative Possession”.

There are already some valuable works and articles that have dealt with the topic of pre-dicative Possession and its expression in Lithuanian (inter alia, Le Feuvre & Petit 2011,Holvoet 2003a, 2005b; Cinclej 1990; Lithuanian is also marginally mentioned in Stassen2009 and, more extensively, in Stolz et al. 2008).

However, I reckon that there is still place for more in-depth descriptions of the Lithuan-ian possessive predicative constructions. Stolz et al. (2008) have pointed out the im-portance of considering the semantic splits in the system of the expression of Possession:a language may have, and use, more than one possessive construction, and it will use themto express different kinds of possessive relations. This paper elaborates on in the questiontackled by Stolz at al. (2008), providing a more extensive description of the Lithuanianpossessive strategies.

First, a brief introduction to the notion of Possession is provided (section 2). Then, thesources of the linguistic data that I have used for my analysis are presented (section 3).In section 4 and section 5 the possessive constructions are presented and the conditions of

* I would like to thank Jogile Teresa Ramonaite for having read the whole text, giving me manyprecious advices. I also thank two anonymous referees, whose remarks and suggestions have beenvery useful to me.Any mistakes left are, of course, my own responsability.

STUF, Akademie Verlag, 66 (2013) 4, 354–377

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use; special attention is dedicated to the restrictions on the use of the verb tureti ‘have’(section 6). Finally, the role of areal influences on Lithuanian will also be mentioned(section 7).

2. The domain of the inquiry: predicative Possession

2.1. Defining Possession

Possession has been recognized as a universal conceptual domain: that means, that everyhuman language is supposed to have morpho-syntactic strategies for its expression (Heine1997: 2). Yet, despite its universality, and its evident central role in everyday life, it is noteasy to find a clear, unequivocal definition for this notion: Seiler (2001: 39) states that “no workable definition of possession has been put forward in the literature (small capitalsby the author, L.M.)”.

The amount of situations and relations that can be described as possessive is amazing:one can speak in terms of Possession about social relations (my wife), material possessions(my house), abstract concepts (our last conversation, your behavior), and so on.The task offinding a common feature, a quid that would justify the use of the term “possessive” tolabel all these expressions is, indeed, a difficult one.

Perhaps, the most neutral way to define Possession is to term it as an asymmetrical rela-tionship between two entities, called Possessor (henceforth: PR) and Possessee (hence-forth: PE) (Seiler 1983, Langacker 2009, Stassen 2009).This definition, however, does notadequately elucidate the semantic content of this relation: the concept of “asymmetrical”is not sufficient, because there are many other relations that fit this description (relationsof spatial inclusion, for instance). Stassen (2001: 954; 2009: 10 ff.) individuates thus threeparameters, that should determine the possessive nature of a relationship: control (the PRcontrols the PE), time-stability (the PR and the PE are in a more or less permanent rela-tionship) and spatial proximity (the PR and the PE are close to one another, either in aphysical or in a metaphorical way). Consequently, Stassen (2009: 15) describes a proto-typical case of possession as follows:

a prototypical case of possession is characterized by the presence of two entities (thepossessor and the possessee) such that a) the possessor and the possessee are in somerelatively enduring locational relation, and b) the possessor exerts control over thepossessee (and is therefore typically human).

Actually, an approach that suggests considering Possession as a prototypically organizednotion is, probably, the most fruitful one (see inter alia, Langacker 1991, 2000, 2002, 2009;Stassen 2009; Heine 1997 and Taylor 1996). According to this view, Possession is not aclear-cut definable notion: rather, the label “possessive” may be extended to a whole rangeof different notions, of which some are more prototypical than others.

Often, the prototypical possessive relation has been considered to be ownership, or legalpossession (Baron & Herslund 2001: 10–11; Heine 1997: 40; Taylor 1996: 341).1 The

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1 But see Langacker (2000: 176–177, and elsewhere), who, in spite of granting ownership a certainprominence, claims that part-whole and kinship relations should be considered equally prototypicalof the whole category, too. See also Aikhenvald (2012) on this point.

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essential features, characterizing ownership, are summarized in the list of five “paradigma-tic properties” proposed by Heine (1997: 39), who, in his turn follows Taylor (1996: 340):

1) The possessor is a human being;2) The possessee is a concrete item;3) The possessor has the right to make use of the possessee;4) Possessor and Possessee are in spatial proximity;5) Possession has no conceivable temporal limit.

Here, the parameters introduced by Stassen – control, time stability and spatial proxim-ity – are present, too: properties 3), 4) and 5) respectively; properties 1) and 2) are a directconsequence of 3), for, as Stassen (2009: 15) remarks, only humans can exert control.

If an expression fulfils all the properties listed above, then it can be classified as an in-stance of ownership: Liza has a new car. However, if even only one of the properties is notfulfilled, a different possessive relation arises. So, in the case of a sentence like John hasmany problems, the property 2) is not fulfilled: the PE (problems) is not a concrete item,but an abstract concept.2 Here, consequently, we are not facing ownership, but anothernotion – namely,Abstract Possession (see below).

On the basis of the possible combinations of the paradigmatic properties, Heine (1997)proposes a list of seven “possessive notions”:

“PHYSICAL POSSESSION: 3 The PR and the PE are physically associated with another atthe reference time: I want to fill in this form; do you have a pen?;TEMPORARY POSSESSION: The PR can dispose of the PE for a limited time but shecannot claim ownership to it: I have a car that I use to go to the office but it belongs toJudy;ALIENABLE PERMANENT POSSESSION: 4 The PE is the property of the PR, and typicallythe PR has a legal title to the PE: Judy has a car and I use it all the time;INALIENABLE POSSESSION: The PE is typically conceived of as being inseparable fromthe PR, e.g., as a body-part or as a relative: I have blue eyes/two sisters;ABSTRACT POSSESSION:The PE is a concept that is not visible or tangible, like a disease,a feeling, or some other psychological state: He has no time/no mercy;INANIMATE INALIENABLE POSSESSION: This notion, which is frequently referred to aspart-whole relationship, differs from Inalienable in that the PR is inanimate, and thePE and the PR are conceived of as being inseparable: That tree has few branches;

Lidia F. Mazzitelli, The expression of predicative Possession in Lithuanian

2 The fact that the Possessee is an abstract concept implies also, as a consequence, that property 3) is not fulfilled: “in cases of abstract possession the notion of ‘control’ between ‘possessor’ and ‘pos-sessee’ is clearly absent; in fact, trying to assess whether in such cases control is present or not wouldprobably constitute a category mistake” (Stassen 2009: 20). See also the discussion in Stolz et al.(2008: 509).

3 I consider Physical Possession as belonging only partially in the domain of Possession. Rather, it con-nects the domains of Possession and Location (see also Cinclej 1990: 55): though being a basicallyspatial notion, it belongs in the first for it implies a hint of control (one of the parameters that deter-mine Possession). The notion of “Inanimate Alienable Possession” is also as locational as PhysicalPossession.Actually, I do not consider it as belonging properly in the domain of Possession: I see herea locational use of the verb to have, that should be considered rather a semantic extension of thesemantics of this verb, and not as a real possessive notion.

4 In the following, I will commonly refer to “ownership” instead that to “Alienable Permanent Posses-sion”.

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INANIMATE ALIENABLE POSSESSION: The PR is inanimate and the PE is separable fromthe PR: That tree has crows on it.”(Heine 1997: 34–35)

These notions should cover the whole domain of Possession, describing all possible pos-sessive relations. Yet, languages distinguish – and encode differently – other, more fine-grained, semantic distinctions. So, for instance, within the category of Abstract Possession,Lithuanian distinguishes different types of PEs: diseases are treated differently from ab-stract concepts (see below). In the following, thus, the notions listed above will be used todescribe the meaning of the analyzed Lithuanian constructions, but, when needed, furtherdistinctions will be made.

2.2. Different types of possessive relations: adnominal, predicative and external Possession

Possessive relations can be encoded in language both on the sentential level (“predica-tive Possession”) and on the noun phrase-internal level (“adnominal Possession”).

As said above, in the following sections the discussion will be limited to those cases, inwhich the possessive relation is encoded at the sentential level, i.e. through a predicate.More exactly, I will limit the analysis to the basic and general verb of possession, ‘have’, dis-regarding lexical verbs of possession such as own, belong, possess. Adnominal Possessionwill be discounted, too.

A third type of possessive expressions, usually called “external Possession”, is generallydistinguished, too (see König & Haspelmath 1997, Haspelmath 1999, Payne & McGregor1999). In typical instances of external Possession, the PR is not encoded within the PE nounphrase: instead, it is realized as an argument of the verb.An example of external Possessionis the Lithuanian sentence in (1):

(1) Jis buciavo jai ranka he.nom kiss.past.3 she.dat hand.acc‘He kissed her (lit. ‘to her’) hand’

Unlike in the English translation, the PR in (1) is not realized as part of the noun phrase,containing the PR (English her hand), but as a dative argument. In (1), therefore, the PRand the PE are two different constituents, whereas in the English example they are part of the same constituent: Lith. jis buciavo[jaiPR:DAT]IO [rankaPE:ACC]DO vs. Eng. he kissed[herPR:GEN handPE]DO

In the following, cases of external Possession will not be taken into account.

2.3. A typology of the linguistic encodings of Possession: examining HEINE (1997)

The topic of the expression of predicative Possession in the languages of the world can-not be said to be underinvestigated. Several scholars have chosen to investigate it, makingof predicative Possession a quite popular subject of research in typological studies: interalia, Aikhenvald & Dixon (2012), Stassen (2009), Stolz & et al. (2008), Heine (1997), Sei-ler (1983), Clark (1978).

In particular, Heine (1997) has built an interesting typology of the predicative possessiveconstructions, analyzing the cognitive processes that determine their genesis. According to

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Heine, human conceptualization, in order to express an abstract and complex notion likePossession, “turns out for help” to other conceptual domains, and, through a process oftranslation, metaphorization and extension, converts constructions originally devoted tothe expression of these domains into possessive ones.Theoretically, any conceptual domaincould be a source for possessive expressions, yet cross-linguistic evidence shows that this is not the case: according to Heine, only four conceptual domains are eligible for this pur-pose – Action, Location,Accompaniment and Existence. Languages create their possessiveconstruction through a grammaticalization process: they grammaticalize constructionsoriginally meaning ‘doing’ (or, more specifically ‘holding’, grasping’, ‘taking’), ‘being locat-ed at’, ‘being with’, ‘existing (to/for someone)’ into possessive expressions meaning ‘having’(Heine 1997: 45–47).

Heine labels the patterns that languages follow during this grammaticalization processas “source schemata”, listing eight thereof:

Action schema: X takes Y > X has, owns YLocation schema:Y is located at X > X has, owns YCompanion schema: X is with Y > X has, owns Y;or X is with Y > Y has, owns XGenitive schema: X’s Y exists > X has, owns Y Goal schema: Y exists for/to X > X has, owns YSource schema:Y exists (away) from X > X has, owns Y Topic schema: For X,Y (of X) exists > X has, owns Y Equation schema:Y is X’s (property) > Y belongs to X5

According to Heine, the source schemata describe both the cognitive patterns that liebehind the conceptual transfer from one of the source domains to Possession and the con-crete grammaticalization patterns that have led, diachronically, to the assessment of theseconstructions as possessive ones in a language. So, following the Action schema, Englishhas generalized the resultative meaning of have (originally ‘hold’), which has become theusual verb of ‘having’ (Heine 1997: 47).

The schemata are universal and are intended to account for the majority of possessiveconstructions in the languages of the world (Heine 1997: 46): thus, we can reasonably ex-pect any human language to present constructions derived from one of them. Lithuanian isno exception: as it will be shown further, its primary possessive construction is an instanceof the Action schema (the verb tureti ‘have’), while it also presents constructions derivedfrom the Goal and the Companion schemata.

3. The data: where they come from

The Lithuanian data analyzed for this study are taken from the Dabartines lietuviu kal-bos tekstynas6 (‘corpus of the contemporary Lithuanian language’). In its original version,the corpus contains 102,857,327 words. The version used in this work, though, is smaller:


5 The Equation schema gives birth exclusively to so-called ‘belonging’-constructions, such as The car isMary’s, the car belongs to Mary (Heine 1997: 65; about ‘belonging’-constructions see the discussion inBaron & Herslund 2001).

6 The corpus has been created by the researchers of the Centre of Computational Linguistics at theVytauto Didziojo University in Kaunas and it is available online: http://donelaitis.vdu.lt/index_en.php.

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it comprises of only 34,070,874 words, taken from 202 texts of various genres – magazines,newspapers, fiction (novels and short stories). All texts in the corpus have been publishedin the 1990s (1995 to 1997), and they are all representative of the standard language.

Spoken language, as well as dialectal data, are absent from my corpus. Therefore, spora-dically, I have also searched the Internet, for the language used on the web is usually verysimilar to the spoken standard.7

Also, in order to integrate the corpus data, an inquiry with 20 native speakers ofLithuanian has been carried out by means of a questionnaire, too (see Appendix). All theinformants deemed Lithuanian as their mother tongue and they spoke it at home. I havespecifically avoided interviewing informants with a Russian- or Polish-speaking familialbackground – a not unusual situation in Vilnius, where I have carried out my interviews.

4. Possessive constructions in Lithuanian

4.1. Tureti

The main possessive construction in Lithuanian is the verb tureti ‘have’, an instance ofthe Action schema (Stolz et al. 2008: 434): this is the only construction that can be used toexpress prototypical Possession (ownership).

Table 1 below shows the results of the analysis on 250 occurrences of tureti:

As the data show, all possessive notions are represented. Abstract Possession (2) is thenotion that is most frequently expressed, followed by Inanimate Possession (part-whole re-lations (3), Inanimate Abstract Possession (4)) and ownership (5):

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7 It must be remarked, that, in the case of Lithuanian, data taken from the Internet must be handledwith care. In fact, there is a conspicuous number of Lithuanians, who have actually Russian as theirfirst and mother tongue: it is reasonable to suppose that in their speech there will be more Russian-isms, including pas + acc. Therefore, when handling data from the Internet, one must always keep inmind that the writer might be a native speaker of Russian, and not of Lithuanian. The data could be,thus, partially biased.

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Possessive notion Tokens

Abstract possession 124

Inanimate possession 51• Part-whole relations 6• Inanimate Abstract Possession 45

Ownership 37

Social possession 27• Inalienable Social Possession 12• Alienable Social Possession 15

Physical Possession 5

Inalienable possession 5

Temporary possession 1

Total 250

Table 1



(2) Rusijoje balso teise turi 110 mlnRussia.loc.sg vote.gen.sg right.acc.sg have.prs.3 110 million pilieciucitizen.gen.pl‘In Russia, 110 million citizens have the right to vote’

(3) Petraviciu namas turi 5 kambarius,Petraviciai.gen.pl house.nom.sg have.prs.3 5 room.acc.plvirtuve ir priemenehallway.acc.sg and kitchen.acc.sg‘Petraviciais’ house has five rooms, a hallway and a kitchen’

(4) Kaunas turi savu ypatumuKaunas.nom.sg has.prs.3 own.gen.pl particularity.gen.pl‘Kaunas has its own particularities’

(5) Stanislavos Zukauskaites tevas siame Stanislava.gen.sg Zukauskaite.gen.sg father.nom.sg this.m.loc.sgKaime turejo stambu ukivillage.loc.sg have.past.3 big.m.acc.sg farm.acc.sg‘Stanislava Zukauskaite’s father had a large-scale farm in this village’

However, as it will be shown below, there are significant restrictions on the use of turetiwith some classes of inalienable and abstract Possessees.

4.2. The possessive dative

A second strategy Lithuanian uses to express Possession is the so-called “possessivedative” or “dative of Possession” (Senn 1966: 414).

Most probably, the dative case represented the original Proto-Baltic strategy for theencoding of Possession, as Vykypel (2001) claims, providing convincing linguistic evidencein support of his claim. Nowadays, this strategy is still in use in Latvian, which is, togetherwith Lithuanian, the only Baltic language still alive.8 Latvian does not dispose at all of averb for ‘have’.

According to Sukys (1998: 162), possessive dative constructions are diffused in theNorthern dialects of Lithuanian, probably because of contact with Latvian. In the contem-porary standard language, yet, the possessive dative is employed to express only Abstract,Social and some cases of Inalienable Possession, but its use is subject to many restrictions.

4.2.1. Inalienable Possession

According to Cinclej (1990: 70), dative constructions can be used in Lithuanian alsowith what she defines as “incomplete details”, that is, little physical details such as ‘bags(under one’s eyes)’, ‘bruises’ (6):


8 The only other relatively well documented Baltic language, Old Prussian, died out in the 18th century.

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(6) Jai yra maiseliai po akimisshe.dat be.prs.3 bag.nom.pl under eye.instr.pl‘She has bags under her eyes’ [Cinclej 1990:70]

In this case, tureti can be used as well. In order to explain the semantic difference, lyingbehind the choice of the one or the other construction, Cinclej reports the opinion ofsome informants, native speakers of Lithuanian, whom she asked about the grammaticalityof tureti with PEs, denoting little physical details. Some of her informants defined the use oftureti in this context as ungrammatical. Some others, conversely, accepted tureti, statinghowever, that its use would imply a change in meaning. While tureti indicates a permanentcharacteristic of the subject (in the example above, ‘she has always bags under her eyes’),the dative case designates a temporary characteristic (‘today she has bags under her eyes,but she usually has not’).9

My informants have also agreed on this interpretation; I also found two examples – oneon the Internet (7), the other in the corpus (8) –, which confirm Cinclej’s statement:

(permanent)(7) Drauges sako jog […] vaikinams

girlfriend.nom.pl say.prs.3 comp boy.dat.plnesvarbu ar turi spuogu ar neneg.important.n.nom.sg q have.prs.2sg pimple.gen.pl or neg‘My girlfriends say that boys don’t care, whether you have pimples or not’

(temporary) (8) Issitraukiau is kisenes sukas ir

pull_out.past.1sg from pocket.gen.sg brush.acc.pl and susisukavau. Bet cia prisiminiau, kadbrush.refl.pst.1sg but here remember.past.1sg compman ant nosies spuogasI.dat on nose.gen.sg pimple.nom.sg‘I pulled out of my pocket a brush and brushed myself. But then I remembered thatI have a pimple on my nose [today, not always]’

4.2.2. Social Possession

In his list of possessive notions, Heine (1997) does not distinguish the notion of SocialPossession from inalienably possessed kinship terms (see above).Yet, I believe, that it maybe useful to use this label, for this notion comprises all the cases, where the PE is a humanbeing: thus, it describes social relations, either inalienable (kinship relations) or alienableones (any other kind of social relations: friendship, neighborhood, etc.).

In Lithuanian, the dative case is used to express Social Possession, but, in this use, it in-volves a certain degree of ambiguity.This is due to one of the main functions of the Lithuan-ian dative: the encoding of Beneficiaries (the so-called dativus commodi/incommodi).Hence the ambiguity: the participant, encoded in the dative case, may be understood as aPossessor, but also as a Beneficiary (see also Stolz et al. 2008: 439). Now, this ambiguous

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9 The fact that tureti is used to express permanent states, in contrast to the dative case, agrees quite well with the primary function of the latter, which is to express ownership – an essentially permanentrelation.

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interpretation is always present, when a dative of possession is used, except that in thosecases, where its possessive use is well-established (as in the case of “little physical details”mentioned above). In the case of Social Possession, however, this ambiguity is particularlystrong.

If the relationship between the PR and the PE is inalienable, dative sentences may beinterpreted as meaning either a “real” (biological) or a “moral” relation. In a few examplesfrom the corpus, the relation asserted through a dative case is indeed a real, biological one(9); however, as in the example in (10), which is part of a funny story, the use of the dativeinvolves a certain “archaizing” (and therefore funny) style:

(9) Jis man sunushe.nom I.dat son.nom.sg‘He is my son’, or ‘to me, he is like a son’

(10) Tu tam vaikui tevas ar ne? you.nom this.m.dat.sg child.dat.sg father.nom.sg or not[…] – Kodel klausi? Nejaugi vel abejoji?

why ask.prs.2sg maybe still doubt.prs.2sg‘Are you this child’s father or not? – […] – Why do you ask? Do you still havedoubts?’

Usually, a genitive would be used, in which case no ambiguity arises:

(11) Jis mano sunushe.nom I.gen son.nom.sg‘He is my son’

If the relation between the PR and the PE is alienable, conversely, a benefactive (and notpossessive) interpretation is more likely to arise:

(12) Mildutes motina mirusi TevuiMildute.gen mother.nom.sg die.PaPA.f.nom.sg father.dat.sgji buvo tik tarnaiteshe.nom be.pst.3 just servant.nom.sg‘Mildute’s mother is dead.To her father she was just a servant’

It must be remarked, that in Lithuanian dative constructions are exclusively used incopular sentences: ‘he is my brother, my father’. Otherwise, tureti is the only availableoption (13a):

(13a) As turiu sunuI.nom have.prs.1sg son.acc.sg

(13b) *Man sunusI.dat son.nom.sg‘I have a son’

4.2.3. Abstract Possession

In the field of Abstract Possession, the dative case is used principally with PEs, denotingdiseases (14) and age (15):

Lidia F. Mazzitelli, The expression of predicative Possession in Lithuanian362



(14) Mama tuomet jau labai sirgo, jaiMama.nom.sg then already much be_ill.pst.3 she.datbuvo vezysbe.pst.3 cancer.nom.sg‘At that time Mama was already very ill, she had cancer’

(15) Jai dar nera ne 40-ies,she.dat still neg.be.prs.3 not 40-gen.sgsunui 16.son.dat.sg 16‘She is not yet forty years old, her son is sixteen.’

In both cases, the dative competes with tureti. Cinclej (1990: 66) proposes the examplein (16), declaring it perfectly acceptable:10

(16) As turiu sloga I.nom have.prs.1sg cold.acc.sg‘I have a cold’

In the corpus, however, I found examples of tureti with PEs denoting diseases only incases, where an indefinite verbal form – participle, infinitive – was needed:

(17) Vaikas, turintis alergine sloga child.nom.sg have. ppa.m.sg allergic.acc.m.sg cold.acc.sg‘(a) child, having an allergic cold’

Moreover, some diseases, apparently, do not allow tureti at all, as, for instance, gripas ‘flu’:(in the corpus as well as on the Internet) I could not find any instance of *tureti gripa‘to have flu’.

Stolz et al. (2008: 436) report a list of dative expressions, quoted from Senn (1966: 414),claiming that in most of them – and especially in expressions of age – the use of tureti would be impossible.The corpus data show that, actually, both the dative case and tureti areallowed, but it is true, that the dative case is decidedly preponderant. Out of the 53 occur-rences of expressions of age found in the corpus, only 16 presented tureti. Moreover, again,most occurrences of tureti were non-finite forms, as in (18):11

(18) Turedamas 14 metu A. Liepinaitis 1944 m.have.ger.m.nom.sg 14 year.gen.pl A. Liepinaitis.nom 1944 y[ear]pasitrauke i Vakarusmove.pst.refl.3 in West.acc.pl‘At the age of 14 [lit. ‘being 14 years old’] A. Liepinaitis moved to the West’

Consequently, even if tureti may be allowed to express age, the dative case is still the pre-ferred option and, in many cases, the reason why tureti is chosen is merely syntactic (theneed for a non-finite verbal form).

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10 The data collected on the Internet confirm Cinclej’s claim, as the expression as turiu sloga is quitefrequent.

11 I must remark that a native speaker of Lithuanian has considered the use of tureti in this sentence asbarely grammatical (J.T. Raimonaite, p.c.).

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As far as the competition “tureti vs. dative case” in expressions of age is concerned, it canbe very interesting to examine how the neighboring languages of Lithuanian – Latvian (Bal-tic), Russian, Belarusian (East Slavic) and Polish (West Slavic) – behave in this context.12

In Russian and Latvian, the dative case is the only option available (unsurprisingly, sinceLatvian lacks a verb for ‘have’ and Russian, though having it, uses it rarely; it must be re-marked that, while Latvian uses the dative case also for the expression of general Posses-sion, Russian does not employ for the expression of age its common possessive construc-tion, u ‘at’ + gen):

Latvian (19) Vin,ai 18 gadu

she.dat 18 year.gen.pl‘She is eighteen-year-old’

Russian(20) Ej 18 let

she.dat 18 year.gen.pl‘She is eighteen-year-old’

Conversely, in Polish, age is usually expressed through the verb miec ‘have’:

(21) Ona ma 18 latshe.nom have.prs.3sg 18 year.gen.pl‘She is eighteen-year-old’

In Old Polish, however, the dative case could also be used (Holvoet 2003: 466). In Bela-rusian, the same situation as in Lithuanian is found. Both the dative case and the verb mec’are allowed (but, in contrast to Lithuanian, Belarusian does not show a clear preference foreither one of the two constructions; Mazzitelli 2012):

(22a) Ëj 18 hadou she.dat 18 year.gen.pl‘She is eighteen-year-old’

(22b) Jana mae 18 hadou she.nom have.prs.3sg 18 year.gen.pl‘She is eighteen-year-old’.’


12 See also Stolz & Stolz (2009) for a cross-linguistic survey of the expressions of age in the languages.

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Languages Strategies for the expression of age

‘Be’-constructions ‘Have’

Lithuanian X X (rare, syntactic constraints)

Russian X

Latvian X

Polish X

Old Polish X

Belarusian X X

Table 2



Now, in Slavic – as well as in Baltic, as said above – the original strategy to expressPossession was, most probably, the dative case (Clancy 2010: 128–129).13 It might be sup-posed, therefore, that all these languages originally used a dative construction to expressage. Then, Polish begun to use ‘have’ in this context. It seems probable, that this usage hasspread from Polish into Lithuanian and Belarusian, which have retained both the olderdative construction, but which have begun, under the influence of Polish, to use ‘have’ inthese cases, too.

Apart from diseases and age, Lithuanian can also use the dative case with a range ofabstract PEs, as, for instance, geda ‘shame’, gaila ‘pity; sorrow’:

(23) Man gailaI.DAT sorrow.NOM.SG ‘I am sorry’, lit. ‘to me is sorrow’

In these expressions, however, the dative participant is, most likely, an Experiencer/Beneficiary, and not a Possessor.

Stolz et al. (2008: 434 ff.) interpret the use of the possessive dative in Lithuanian asbeing strongly affected by its ambiguity (Possessor – Experiencer/Beneficiary). Accordingto them (Stolz et al. 2008: 439–440), the dative of Possession is possible in Lithuanian onlyin two cases: i. when the PR denotes a mental state, an illness, or an abstract concept thatimplies that the participant is involved, or ii. when the PR is the person for whom, in whoseinterest the action is accomplished/the situation described is meant. It must be said, how-ever, that not all abstract nouns – even those that fulfill these conditions – accept the dativecase.

For instance, my informants have rejected the dative case in the following examples, andhave proposed to replace it with tureti:

(24) *Jai buvo jautri, poetiska sielashe.dat be.past.3 bright.f.nom.sg poetical.f.nom.sg soul.nom.sg‘She had a bright and poetical soul’

(25) *Jam taip pat yra rupesciaihe.dat also be.prs.3 worry.nom.pl‘He has also worries’

4.3. The ‘topicalized genitive’

A third possessive construction, frequently employed in Lithuanian, is the so-called‘topicalized genitive’, of which the sentence below is an example:

(26) Linos buvo sviesus plaukai Lina.gen.sg be.pst.3 blond.m.nom.pl hair.nom.pl‘Lina had blond hair’ [lit. ‘Lina’s was blond hair’]

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13 Probably, the dative case was the only construction available in Early Common Slavic. As far as LateCommon Slavic is concerned, there is evidence that, together with the dative possessive construction,a ‘have’ verb must have also been present, as well as the adessive construction u ‘at’ + gen (Mircev1971, Vasilev 1973, Clancy 2010: 130, McAnallen 2011).

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In this sentence, three elements may be distinguished: a noun in the genitive case intopical position (Linos ‘Lina’s’), a past form of the verb buti, ‘be’ and a noun phrase,constituted by a noun in the nominative case (plaukai ‘hair’) and its adjectival modifier(sviesus ‘blond’).14

Considering the word order, the sentence in (26) seems to correspond exactly to theEnglish sentence Lina’s was a blond hair – thus, an expression of adnominal Possession(27), where the PE constituent has been split up to put the PR in topical position, and thePR in focus (28):

(27) Linos plaukai buvo sviesus Lina.gen.sg hair.nom.pl be.pst.3 blond.nom.M.pl‘Lina’s hair was blond’ → topicalization of the Possessor:

(28) Linos buvo sviesus plaukai Lina.gen.sg be.pst.3 blond.nom.m.pl hair.nom.pl‘Lina’s was a blond hair’

If it were so, (26) would be the marked form for the neutral (27). Yet, (26) is used as aneutral – not marked! – expression, being semantically equivalent to the English sentenceLina had blond hair (Holvoet 2005a: 154). With regard to their semantics, then, instancesof the ‘topicalized genitive’ are much more similar to expressions of predicative Possession(as English She has blond hair) than to expressions of adnominal Possession.

In contemporary Lithuanian, the topicalized genitive appears exclusively with modifiedPEs (Holvoet 2005a). Most frequently, it is employed in physical descriptions, of bothanimate and inanimate PRs. The following example has been proposed to me by nativespeakers:15

(29) Musu namo raudonas stogaswe.gen house.gen.sg red.m.nom.sg roof.nom.sg‘Our house has a red roof’


14 This construction cannot be directly traced back to any of the schemata, individuated by Heine.Though the terms ‘genitive’ and ‘topicalized’ recall the Topic and the Genitive schemata, this con-struction cannot be an instance of any of these two schemata, because the predicate buti ‘be’ fulfilshere the functions of a copular verb, and not of an existence predicate – as the syntactic structure ofthe schemata requires. Holvoet (2005a: 65) links the genesis of the topicalized genitive to the originaldative of Possession: in contexts, where the PE was modified, the dative was not replaced with tureti,but with the possessive default case (the genitive). Therefore, we could consider the topicalized geni-tive as being derived from the Goal schema, even if in a synchronic view it does not present a dative/allative component.

15 It must be noticed that, with a different word order, sentences with an initial genitive may be ambi-guous as far as the role of the genitive constituent is concerned. A sentence like musu namo stogasraudonas may be interpreted as [musu namo stogas] [raudonas] ‘the roof of our house (is) red’ or as[musu namo] [stogas raudonas] ‘our house is with a red roof [= has a red roof]’, with a topicalizedgenitive (musu namo) and the adjective raudonas ‘red’ put in focus. The correct interpretation mayonly be understood by the intonation in speech.

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The topicalized genitive can also be used to express some abstract concepts (30) and“moral” characteristics (31):

(30) Pagoniu yra kitoks budasheathens.gen.pl be.prs.3 different.m.nom.sg habit.nom.sg‘Heathens have different habits’ [Maskuliunas 2000: 15]

(31) Petro sunkus charakteris Peter.gen.sg difficult.m.nom.sg character.nom.sg‘Peter has a difficult character’ [Holvoet 2005b: 153]

According to my informants, this construction cannot be used to express ownership.16

Actually, Senn (1929) presents the following case:

(32) Mano kaimyno yra ilgas laukasI.gen neighbor.gen.sg be.prs.3 long.m.nom.sg field.nom.sg‘My neighbor has a long field’ [Senn 1929: 24; quoted in Stassen 2009: 46]

In (32) the obligatory structure with a modified Possessee is respected. However, myinformants have rejected the example proposed by Senn, stating, that – at least in thecontemporary standard language – it would be acceptable only within a contrastive con-text (33):

(33) Mano kaimyno yra ilgas laukas,I.gen neighbor.gen.sg be.prs.3 long.nom.M.sg field.nom.sgo mano yra trumpasbut I.gen be.prs.3 short.nom.M.sg‘My neighbor’s field is long, whereas mine is short’

Thus, the sentence in (33) does not mean ‘My neighbor has a long field’: rather, it is adescription, implying a contrastive interpretation – ‘my neighbors’ field is long (while mineis short)’. Out of a contrastive context, (33) would be ungrammatical, and in this case onlytureti can be used (34):

(34) Mano kaimynas turi ilga laukaI.gen neighbor.gen.sg have.prs.3 long.acc.m.sg field.acc.sg‘My neighbor has a long field’

Conversely, the sentence in (29) above is perfectly acceptable even without a contrastivecontext, because the PE is inalienable. It follows, that the topicalized genitive is accepted,out of contrastive contexts, only in expressions of Inalienable (both animate and inani-mate) Possession and Abstract Possession (with specific classes of PEs only, see (30) and(31) above). In all other cases, a contrastive context is needed.

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16 Le Feuvre & Petit (2011: 272) mention, though, that in the Lithuanian dialect of Gerveciai (Belarus’)the topicalized genitive is used to express ownership as well, even if very rarely.

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4.4. Minor constructions: su + INSTR and pas + ACC17

The verb tureti, the dative of Possession and the topicalized genitive represent the mainpossessive constructions in Lithuanian. However, two other constructions, su ‘with’ + instrand pas ‘at’ + acc, derived from the Companion and the Location schemata respectively,are found, too.

According to the corpus data, su + instr is frequently used with nouns, denoting clothesand other removable objects, in both predicative (35) and adnominal constructions (36):

(35) Mergina buvo su raudona sijonagirl.nom.sg be.past.3 with red.instr.f.sg skirt.instr.sg‘(The) girl had a red skirt’

(36) Mergina su tatuiruotegirl.nom.sg with tattoo.instr.sg‘(the) girl with a tattoo’

Conversely, it is not used with permanent characteristics, such as ‘eyes’ or ‘hair’. In thiscase, a bare instrumental may be used:

(37) Ji (*su) zaliomis akimisshe.nom (*with) green.instr.f.pl eye.instr.pl‘She has green eyes’ [Cinclej 1990: 99]

The bare instrumental can also be employed with PEs, denoting clothes:

(38) Jis buvo juodu kostiumu he.nom be.past.3 black.instr.m.sg suit.instr.sg‘He had a black suit on’

In other cases, possessive su ‘with’ + instr is a rare construction (just 37 occurrences inthe whole corpus). Mainly, it is used to express Inanimate (39) and Temporary or PhysicalPossession (40):

(39) [Jis] turejo daug pilnu sasiuviniu […]he.nom have.pst.3 much full.gen.pl notebook.gen.plvisi buvo su melynais virseliaisall.prn.nom.pl be.pst.3 with blue.m.instr.pl cover.instr.pl‘(He) had many full notebooks […] they all had blue covers’

(40) Nors uzpuolikas buvo su pistoletuthough aggressor.nom.sg be.pst.3 with gun.instr.sgmoteris nesutriko ir ijungewoman.nom.sg neg.get_confused.pst.3 and turn_on.pst.3 signalizacijaalarm.acc.sg‘Although the aggressor had a gun, the woman did not get confused and turned onthe alarm’


17 For a crosslinguistic view on the companion schema in predicate possessive construction, the reader is referred to Stolz (2001).



Particular attention must be granted to the construction pas ‘at’ + acc, an instance of theLocation schema. This construction is formally identical to the Russian main possessiveconstruction u ‘at’ + gen, and it is commonly considered as being a calque from the latter(Fraenkel 1929: 84; Sukys 1998: 438 ff.,Voronkova 2009, Le Feuvre & Petit 2011: 272).

Nowadays, pas + acc is widely used in Lithuanian colloquial speech, together with tureti,to express Possession. However, its use is firmly condemned by purists, who consider it as asign of the Russification process that took place during the Soviet time, when Russian wasthe co-official language in Lithuania (Sukys 1998: 438 ff.).

Its colloquial character is confirmed by the corpus data: in the whole corpus, I could notfind a single instance of pas + acc employed with a clearly possessive meaning. The major-ity of informants have also rejected its use, labelling it as “bad language”. Yet, I could findmany instances of possessive pas + acc on the Internet, where it is mainly used to expressAbstract (41) and Inalienable Possession (42):

(41) Vat pas mane ta pati problemainter at I.acc this.f.nom.sg same f.nom.sg problem.nom.sg‘There, I have the same problem’

(42) Gintare kokios grazios akys pasGintare.voc.sg which.f.acc.pl beautiful.f.nom.pl eye.nom.pl at tave!you.sg.acc‘Gintare, what beautiful eyes you have!’

5. Splits in the system

As seen in the foregoing sections, Lithuanian can employ more than one construction toexpress Possession. The constraints that regulate the use of the one or the other construc-tion are mainly semantic:18 different possessive notions are encoded through differentlinguistic strategies. This is exactly what Stolz et al. (2008) labeled as “split Possession”,when examining the phenomenon in several European languages – such as, for instance,Icelandic, Portuguese, Maltese, and Breton (ibid.).

In the table below, the possessive notions are listed (with some specifications, to describein a more suitable way the distinctions Lithuanian is sensitive to) together with their pos-sible encodings.19 “Main strategies” are considered the constructions that are usuallyemployed to express that particular notion; “minor strategies” are the constructions thatare less frequently used in that context:

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18 Sometimes they can also be syntactic. For instance, as seen above, tureti is used when non-finite verbalforms are needed, even in contexts where it would be normally avoided (physical descriptions, ex-pressions of age).

19 Pas + acc is not considered.

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As Table 3 and 4 show, only in the case of ownership and Inalienable Possession [-modi-fied] there is usually no alternative, for only tureti can be used to express these two notions.All other possessive notions – which are not as prototypical as ownership – admit morethan one encoding strategy.

6. Restrictions on the use of tureti

6.1. When tureti is disliked

As already mentioned, there are some cases, where tureti is disliked vis-à-vis other pos-sessive constructions: namely, with PEs denoting diseases and inalienable modified PEs(physical descriptions).


Possessive notion Main strategy Minor strategy

Ownership tureti

Temporary/Physical Possession tureti su + instr

Inalienable Possession topicalized genitive (tureti; mainly with indefinite verbal forms) [+modified] su + instr

Inalienable Possession tureti[-modified]

Inalienable Possession su + instr tureti[+little detail] dative case

Abstract Possession tureti dative case su + instr

Abstract Possession dative case tureti[+disease]

Abstract Possession dative case (tureti; mainly with indefinite verbal forms) [+age]

Social Possession tureti dative case

Inanimate Possession tureti topicalized genitive (only if the Possessee is inalienable and modified)

Table 3

Table 4

Possessive notions

tureti ownershipTemporary and Physical PossessionInalienable Possession [+modified],Social PossessionInanimate Possession

Dative case Inalienable Possession [+ little details]Abstract Possession [+ diseases, + age]

Topicalized genitive Inalienable Possession [+ modified]

su + Instr. Inalienable Possession [+ little detail]Inalienable Possession [+ modified]



The use of tureti with PEs denoting diseases has been described above. As for physicaldescriptions, tureti is decidedly disliked in this context (with both animate and inanimatePossessors). Usually, it is replaced with the topicalized genitive.

Conversely, tureti is generally well accepted in non-modified expressions of Inalienableand Inanimate Possession, where the possessive relation is in focus (that is, it is assertedwith particular force; see also Cinclej 1990: 98):

(43) Pirmas jo klausimas buvo, kaipfirst.m.nom.sg he.gen question.nom.sg be.past.3 how as atrodziau suemimo metu. Ar I.nom look_like.pst.1sg arrest.gen.sg time.instr.sg qturejau, barzda, usus?have.pst.1sg beard.acc.sg moustache.acc.pl‘His first question was how I looked like at the time of the arrest. Did I have a beard,a moustache?’

Interestingly, tureti represents the exact opposite of the ‘topicalized genitive’. In fact, thelatter, unlike tureti, appears exclusively in descriptive instances of Inalienable Possession(that is, when the PE is modified), while it cannot be used with non-modified PEs:

(44a) *Jo ne-b-era plauku he.gen no-more-is hair.gen.pl

(44b) Jis ne-be-turi plauku he.nom no-more-have.prs.3 hair.gen.pl‘He does not have his hair anymore (= he has become bold)’

6.2. An attempt to an explanation

In my opinion, the rejection of tureti in physical descriptions and diseases might be ex-plained with reference to the “experiencer-like” or “passive” role of the PR in such con-texts. The PR is “passive” with relation to the possibility of starting/ending the possessiverelation. Evidently, no one can voluntarily choose to suffer or to recover from an illness, tobe or not to be in trouble, to be blue- or brown-eyed, whereas one can usually choose tohave or to stop having a house or a car.

Also, at least in the case of disease, the Possessor can be described as an Experiencer.Haspelmath (2001: 1945–1946) claims that Eastern European languages prefer to encodeexperiencers as patients or goals – in syntactic terms, as a direct object or as a dative –,whereas Western European languages usually prefer to encode them as nominative agents:

(45a) Russian Eto mne nravitsjathis.nom.sg I.dat like.refl.3sg

(45b) EnglishI like it.

Lithuanian also shows a tendency towards the use of non-nominative subjects, even if to a smaller extent with respect to other languages of the area (Haspelmath 2001:

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1945–1946).As far as the example provided above is concerned, in Lithuanian both a nomi-native construction with the verb megti ‘like’ and a non-nominative construction exist:

(46a) As megstuI.nom like.prs.1sg‘I like’

(46b) Man patinkaI.dat please.prs.3‘I like’

The fact that Lithuanian, though equipped with a ‘have’-verb, prefers to not use it inexperiential situations (such as the expression of diseases) fits well with the tendency ofencoding experiencers not as nominative agents, but rather as dative goals:

(47) Man gripasI.dat flu.nom.sg‘I have flu’

It is also interesting to observe that, in Lithuanian, the dative case and the topicalizedgenitive have a kind of complementary distribution in the field of abstract Possession. Thedative case is used in all the situations that imply, or allow, an experiential/benefactiveinterpretation, while the topicalized genitive, conversely, is used to describe the subject,through his/her physical or moral characteristics:

7. Areal influences on Lithuanian

A final topic must be considered, when speaking of the expression of predicative Posses-sion in Lithuanian: the areal tendencies, that might have influenced the choices made bythis language in the realm of possession.

The geographical position of Lithuanian is, indeed, very interesting. The region whereLithuanian is spoken has been defined as “the place where have-languages and be-lan-guages meet” (Häusler 2005). The labels “have-languages” and “be-languages” have beenintroduced by Isacenko (1974) in his famous paper, where he divides European languagesinto two groups. In the first group belong the languages, in which the possessive relation isprimarily expressed through a verb of ‘having’ (that is, following Heine’s Action schema):Isacenko labels them as “have-languages”. In the second group belong the languages, in


Table 5

Dative case Topicalized genitive

Benefactive/ jam gedaExperiential he.dat shame.nom.sg

‘He is ashamed’

Physical/moral jo sunkus charakterischaracteristics he.gen difficult.nom.m.sg character.nom.sg

‘He has a difficult character’jo zavios akis he.gen green.nom.f.pl eye.nom.pl‘He has green eyes’



which possessive predicative constructions present a verb of ‘being’ as their predicate (andare thus instance of any other schema than the Action schema): the “be-languages”.

According to Isacenko, all the West European languages, with the remarkable exceptionof most Celtic languages (see also Orr 1992), are have-languages. Conversely, many of thelanguages spoken in Eastern Europe are be-languages (Russian, Latvian, Finnic lan-guages). Finally, Belarusian, Polish and Ukrainian are defined as languages in a “state oftransition” between the be- and the have-languages (Isacenko 1974: 44). Isacenko does notgrant Lithuanian the status of a transitional language, listing it, instead, among the “pure”have-languages (Isacenko 1974: 44).

Yet, Cinclej (1990: 141) has criticized this decision, claiming instead that Lithuanianshould be considered as a transitional language20, too. I believe, that the data presented inthe foregoing confirm Cinclej’s claim. Of course, when considering the expression ofownership, Lithuanian is decidedly a have-language, for it uses exclusively tureti to thispurpose, as shown above. Yet, if one takes into account all other possessive notions and the ‘be’-based constructions used for their expression (dative case, topicalized genitive,comitative constructions) the picture is, definitely, not that of a “have only”-language.

Now, if one considers the geographical position of Lithuanian, the possibility, that itsbeing a transitional language might be due to contact with the neighboring languages, mustbe considered.

Two questions should be answered: 1. is it possible, that language contact has played arole in the grammaticalization of a ‘have’-verb in Lithuanian (through a process of gram-matical replication, as exemplified in Heine & Kuteva 2005)?; 2. can the transitional statusof Lithuanian – its having a ‘have’-verb while at the same time consistently using ‘be’-basedconstructions – be ascribed to language contact, too?

As for the first question, three hypotheses can be put forward: 1. Lithuanian21 has inno-vated under the influence of its neighbor, Polish; 2. Lithuanian has developed a ‘have’-verbindependently; 3. Language contact has just reinforced a process that Lithuanian hadalready started independently.

Unfortunately, as far as the first two hypotheses are concerned, we do not have evidenceto prove that either one is right.22 As already mentioned, the grammaticalization of ‘have’-verbs from verbs of ‘holding’, as in the case of tureti, is a cross-linguistically well documen-ted process: therefore, there is no need of presupposing an external influence. We lack anyconclusive evidence showing possible “pre-contact” and “post-contact” phases, because inthe oldest Lithuanian documents, tracing back to the 16th century, tureti is already solidlyestablished as a means of expression of Possession23 (Maskuliunas 2000).

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20 It must be said that Isacenko does not limit his analysis to the field of the means of expression ofpredicative Possession, but he analyses also other factors, which he considers typical for ‘have’ or ‘be’ languages: the presence/absence of a possessive perfect, the presence/absence of modals, thepossibility to use the verb ‘belong’ to express Location, etc.Actually, as Cinclej (1990) demonstrates,Lithuanian is transitional with reference to these parameters, too.

21 Apart from Lithuanian, also another Baltic language, the now extinct Old Prussian, has created a‘have’-verb, turıt, following the same grammaticalization process as in Lithuanian: turıt ‘hold’ >‘have’. Le Feuvre & Petit (2011: 275) claim that the development of ‘have’ in Old Prussian should be ascribed to German influence.

22 See Heine & Kuteva (2005: 31 ff.) on similar problematic cases.23 There is also another problem, connected with the oldest Lithuanian texts: usually, the texts are

heavily influenced by Polish and German, as they are, often, translations from these two languages.Therefore, their testimony is often biased.

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Haspelmath (2001) advances the hypothesis, that the tendency of the Western Indo-European languages of Europe to develop ‘have’-verbs may be considered as an arealtrend. Lithuanian might have taken part in this general process under the influence of itsWestern neighbors: but we cannot prove it definitely.

As for the third hypothesis, we cannot prove it right, either, but it is highly plausible.Vykypel (2001) proposes a similar explanation to the behavior of Latvian. He hypo-thesizes, that contact with Finnic languages – which express Possession by means of alocative construction involving a ‘be’-predicate – could have either prevented Latvian fromdeveloping a ‘have’-verb as Lithuanian did, or it could have stopped at an initial stage theprocess of development, provided it had already begun.24 The same – but on the oppositedirection – could be stated for Lithuanian, too: contact with Polish and German might havespeeded up a process of grammaticalization that had already begun.

As far as the question concerning the role of language contact and the “transitional”state of Lithuanian goes, we face the same problems just mentioned, when dealing with thegenesis of tureti. Contact with the be-languages Latvian and Russian might surely be con-sidered responsible for Lithuanian still having some be-constructions – namely, the dativeof possession and the topicalized genitive – and for its imposing some limitations on the useof tureti in the contexts examined above. Yet, also in this case, we do not have conclusiveevidence to prove the involvement of contact.The theory, presented above, that the restric-tions tureti is subject to could be due to semantic causes, may furnish an internal-Lithuan-ian explanation to the behavior of tureti: in this case, we would not need any involvement ofexternal influences.

However, I consider it extremely probable, that contact with Latvian and Russian (andpartially also Belarusian, which makes an extensive use of the adessive u ‘at’ + gen to ex-press Possession; Mazzitelli 2012) has contributed to limit the expansion of the ‘have’-model and in strengthening the ‘be’-constructions of Lithuanian.

Appendix

This is a sample of the questionnaires that I have tested with 20 native speakers of Lithuanian. I haveasked them to read some sentences in Lithuanian and to judge them as correct or incorrect. In thissecond case, they should also say why. All the sentences are taken from the corpus, but with somechanges. For instance, in (1) the original sentence presented tureti: I replaced it with the topicalizedgenitive, in order to test the acceptability of the latter in an ownership context.

Due to space limits, I will present here only five sentences; in the original questionnaire, the infor-mants (divided into two groups, had to judge twenty-four sentences, twelve for each group).


24 This hypothesis gains in reliability when data from the Latvian dialects are considered: there isevidence, that the verb turet ‘hold’ was, and still may be, used with a possessive meaning (Vykypel2001: 221, ft.14; see also the Latviesu Literaras Valodas Vardnıca (1996: 29 entry turet, meaning class (5)) about the standard language.

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Ownership – Topicalized genitive

1. Egidijus Sipavicius sako, kad koncertuodamas uzsienyje turtu nesusikrove, […] Dainininko siandienautomobilis, garazas, susitvarke buta.‘Egidijus Sipavicius said, that his concerts abroad have not made him rich. […] Nowadays the singerhas a car [lit. ‘singer.GEN (is) car’], a garage, he has bought an apartment’.

2. Pasak kalejimo virsininko J.Andzelos,“Henyte”, kaip ir kiti laukiantieji teismo, keliasi 6, miegoti eina 22val. Mafijos boso du televizoriai, kasdien skaito spauda.‘‘According to the director of the prison, J. Andzela, “Henyte”, just like the other prisoners, who arewaiting for their trial, gets up at 6 a.m., and he goes to bed at 10 p.m.The mafia boss has two televisions[lit. ‘to the boss.DAT (are) two televisions’], he reads the press every day.’

Inalienable Possession (physical characteristics) – dative case

3. Tai nebuvo tik paprastas kelmas. Jis tik is virsaus taip negraziai atrode, o jo vidury gyveno Strubuliukas,toks mazytis mazytis vyrukas. Jam plaukai buvo geltoni, apie ausis pasiraite.‘This was not just a normal cabin. From the outside, it looked like really ugly, but Strubuliukas, a littlelittle man, lived inside it. His hair was yellow [lit. ‘to him.DAT hair was yellow’], cut about the ears.’

Inalienable Possession (physical characteristics) – tureti

4. Tai tau norejo pasakyti panele, su kuria tu gana trumpai sokai. Ji vilkejo zalsvai rusvo atspalvio megztinibei rudus dzinsus, turejo tamsius, banguotus plaukus ir melynas akis.‘This is what a girl, with whom you danced for a while, would like to tell you. She had a green-brownishsweater and brown jeans, she had dark, wavy hair and blue eyes’.

Temporary Possession – tureti

5. Egle, niekur negaliu rasti knygos apie Venecija kuria nusipirkom pries menesi … ar nezinai, kur ji yra? –Taip, zinau. Ja turi Povilas.‘Egle, I cannot find anywhere the book about Venice that we have bought a month ago … do you knowwhere it is? – Yes, I know. Paul has it.’

Abbreviations

1 first person n neuter2 second person neg negation3 third person nom nominativeacc accusative NP noun phrasecomp complementizer PaPA past participle activedat dative prn pronoundo direct object pst pastf feminine PE Possesseegen genitive pl pluralger gerund ppa present participle activeimp imperative pr Possessorinstr instrumental prs presentinter interjection refl reflexiveio indirect object sg singularloc locative q question particlem masculine voc vocative

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Lidia Federica MazzitelliUniversity of BremenFB 10: Sprach- und LiteraturwissenschaftenPostfach 330440D - 28334 [email protected]

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The expression of predicative Possession in Lithuanian (STUF 66:4, 2014, 354-377)

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