Possessives - does this distinction exist?

[xijlwya]

Hey guys. Lately, I came up with a neat distinction for possessive markers in my conlang. I wonder which natlang does actually make this distinction - so maybe you know.

Consider: (1) 'This is my way home.' and (2) 'This is my car.'
In (2), I really possess the object. But in (1) I state a possession of something I cannot possess (or it is rather very unlikely). I'd call these two things 'real possessive' and 'relational possessive' - because 'This is my way home.' expresses a relation between me and the way/path. What do you think of it?

I plan to realise them differently in my conlang. So I could express "I own that way to my home." and "This is the way I go, when I want to go home."

..mmmhhh. Thinking of it, it somehow seems strange to me to have this distinction - it is so capitalistic :P

[reizoukin]

Maasai distinguishes between possessable and unpossessable. This means that words such as "my brother" is okay, but "my land" is not; you'd have to say "the land that I own". This seems the most fit to your language.

Georgian distinguishes between the possession of animate and inanimate things; you have to use a different affix to mark owning animate things than inanimate things.

Other languages distinguish between alienable and inalienable; if it can be separated, then it's marked differently than if it can't be separated. A body part can not be separated; a pen can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Possession_(linguistics)

I'm sure there are tons of languages that make the distinction you are talking about, but rather than making "my path home" a possession, they make it something else. i.e., "The path to my home" or "The path I must take"

[xijlwya]

Maasai distinguishes between possessable and unpossessable. This means that words such as "my brother" is okay, but "my land" is not; you'd have to say "the land that I own". This seems the most fit to your language.

Hey, that is a really nice way of dealing with it. Shows a healthy attitude towards grammaticalised possession :D

So maybe I'll just narrow down the use of the possessive pronouns (or markers in any sense) to occasions where they express *real* posession.

[MrKrov]

A body part can not be separated;

Oh yes it can.

[reizoukin]

A body part can not be separated;

Oh yes it can.

Not in a traditional polynesian language, it can't. Unless you cut it off with a knife.

A body part can not be separated without a sharp object;

Happy?

[MrKrov]

I would have settled for "pet chainsaw" but whatever.

[xijlwya]

I just imagine two people speak any language that has the distinction "able to be sperarated/unable to be separated" talking about an arm or another limb. One of them marks arm as ?separatable - a little morpheme to frighten the others :D

[Czwartek]

I just imagine two people speak any language that has the distinction "able to be sperarated/unable to be separated" talking about an arm or another limb. One of them marks arm as ?separatable - a little morpheme to frighten the others :D

Haha! It would be fun to see how such a dialogue would be translated into a language without this morphological distiction.

[rickardspaghetti]

This sounds like a genitive/possessive distinction to me.

[xijlwya]

This sounds like a genitive/possessive distinction to me.

Actually that seems quite reasonable ?to/for me. Also, as English for example doesn't distinguish that, the following thingy holds: (1) Mike's apartment = (2) his apartment, as long as his refers to Mike. In a language with such a distinction, this would not be true I guess...