Possessive Form of Nouns and English Subjective Nouns

• Main Authors: A B Kostromin, O G Gorbatenko
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Peoples’ Friendship University of Russia (RUDN University) 2015-12-01
• Series: Russian Language Studies
• Subjects: родительный падеж; притяжательная форма; уровень субъектности; аналитический язык; языковая детерминанта; внутренняя форма
• Online Access: http://journals.rudn.ru/russian-language-studies/article/view/9896

This article argues that the possessive form of English nouns of non-living things tends to correlate with the subjectivity of nouns. The subjectivity is likely to be a multi-leveled phenomenon. Though naming non-living things, some group of nouns are quasi-subjective that brings them to adopt a possessive form. The development of the possessive form is regarded as resulting from the typological transformation of the English language i.e. the move from an inflected language to an analytical one.