Simplified versus Idiomatic Kiswahili: A look at Possessives and Possession in Predication-sentences (Pn-Ss)

In order to explain the syntax and pragmatics of inalienable constructions in Kiswahili, Hinnebusch and Kirsner (1980) examine a number of predication-sentences (Pn-Ss). Some of these constructions allegedly describe inalienable possession and others are said to describe alienable possession. On the one hand, the writers make a distinction between "central" versus "peripheral" participants, based on a distribution of agreement markers in predicate constituents (PCs) or verbs and, on the other hand, distinguish between "genitival sentences" and "non-genitival sentences" also on the basis of agreement markers. Our paper examines the assumptions they make and suggests that they overlook "idiomatic" possession constructions and their implications in Pn-Ss. For example, Kiswahili allows their so-called 'central' versus 'peripheral' as well as 'genitival' versus 'non-genitival' constructions to generate subject as well as object markers in PCs of Pn-Ss, as appropriate. The simplified model of Hinnebusch and Kirsner (1980), therefore, fails its own tests because it overlooks choices available to native speakers and other syntactic relationships in the grammar. In short, in "idiomatic" syntactic patterns of Kiswahili, possessor and possessed NPs can and do generate agreement markers in the same manner in PCs. Our paper stresses that Kiswahili possessive and possession relations are best served by comparing simplified with "idiomatic" grammatical constructions. When this happens, we find that there is structurally more to possession relationships than just selective agreement patterns and their pragmatics. A study of the pragmatics of possession needs to be based on a wide variety of data in the language.