Analysis the strategies of possession in French with a typology point of view

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Mahboube Sadat Mirafzali ¹
• Shahla Sharifi ²

¹ Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Ferdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran

² Department of Linguistics Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

10.22067/rltf.2025.90021.1130

Abstract

Since the concept of possession plays a very fundamental role in the human mental system and as a result in the linguistic system of all the world's languages, there are strategies for it in every language. In the current research, we have analyzed and investigated the construction of a possession in French with a descriptive-analytical method and with a typology approach. For this purpose, we have first introduced the concept of possession in this language and then we have gone to the strategies that are used to express possession in the French language and also the dominant strategy that is used in this language to express the concept of possession and the category of the French language. We have determined its basis. The results of this research show that the dominant strategy in French possessive construction is the morpho-syntactic strategy of word augmentation and the use of prepositions. The property and the owner in this construction are adjacent to each other without any merger and the preposition is placed between the property and the owner as a separate verb, respectively.
The dominant arrangement in French property construction is property-owner. According to the mentioned cases, it seems that this language is placed in the category of languages that are located between discrete and connected languages. The animacy variable as well as the separability or inseparability variable in this language does not have much effect on the arrangement of structures or the way of possession.

Keywords

• Possession
• possession strategies
• typology of possession
• French language
• typologie du français

Main Subjects

• french language

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