Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/49250

Alutor (Paleosiberian, Chukchi-Kamchatkan family) has two proprietive constructions formed with affixes -lʔ (L-form) and ɣa-...-lin(a) (G-form). In this paper, I will describe morphological, syntactical and semantic features of possessee nouns in each construction and demonstrate that the L-form is preferred when there is a particularly close semantic relationship between the possessor and possessee. The G-form, in contrast, is used when a speaker is interested in the existence of a possessee, and often expresses a temporal possession. Additionally, I will show the difference between the proprietive forms and an existential construction, illustrate the co-occurrence of L-form with comitative prefixes and give examples of several kinds of abessive forms in Alutor.