TOWARDS AND E~PLICIT DESCRIPTION OP POSSESSIVITY 
Parr Pi~ha 
Faoulty of Mathematics and Physioa, Charles University, 
118 00 Praha 1, Malostransk~ n. 25, Czechoslovakia 
Any grA---ar must aocou~t for the category of possessiv- 
ity. As far as we ~now this category is not yet exhaustively 
described for any language. In this paper we want to demonstr- 
ate an explicit approach to this complicated language pheno- 
menon. The functional generative grammar proposed by Sgall 
and worked out in the group of Faculty of Mathematics and 
Physics, Charles University, is chosen for this description. 
Distinction between the ontologi~,al notion of possess- 
ivlty and the language counterpart of it is~ drawn and distinct- 
ion between meaning of possessivity and forms of its express- 
ion is shown. These distinctions are exemplified on the not- 
ion of so-called possessive dative, which is not an expression 
of possessive meaning. Arguments for establishing, this mean- 
ing of dative are shown as based on. ontological criteria. 
Various constructions and expressions used for express- 
ing the possessive meaning are enumerated and their syntactic 
and semantic character is discussed. 
Three main meanings of the verb %0 have are described: 
I. full lexlcal meaning - a possessive one connected with 
active - passive transformation, 2. copulative meaning I 
connected with he__construction transformation, 3. copulative 
meanin~ connected with any of these transformations. Some 
differences between copula to b._._.~e and copulative to have are 
shown. In the b_e-sentences the subject member of the class is 
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named in the predicate. In the have-sentences the object as a 
single element is attached to the subject. 
Similarly different meanings of the verb to belonF~are 
stated. 1. location, 2. appurtenance, 3. possession. Classific- 
ation is rejected as meaning of this verb and is shown as a 
content phenomenon. Other expressions for possessivity as 
genitives, possessive pronouns and possessive adverbs are 
partially discussed and compared with results obtained for 
verbal expressions of poesessivity. Finally a list of importsnt 
meaning distinctions (e.g. possessivity versus appurtenance) 
is given and a tentative table of homonyms (and synonymy) of 
forms of their expressing is outlined. 
In addition some simplifications of the complete linguist- 
ic description are shown for applications in question-answer- 
ing systems and some special treatments adjusted to a given pur- 
I~Sa are suggested. We suppose that from the point of view of 
various kinds of applications certain simplifications of 
the theoretical linguistic conclusions are not only acceptable 
but in some cases even necessary. It seems for example that 
in certain sublanguage in a limited area of texts some content 
regularities are met with such a high probability, that we can 
accept them in these texts as valid arguments for a change in 
a demcription of meaning. It seems also better to use in q-a 
systems the genitive construction as a basic expression of 
the meaning of possession and appurtenance rather than have- 
or belon~ to-constructions~ which seem to be the best underly- 
ing structure in a general theoretical description of grammar. 
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