Abstract

Kove, an Oceanic language of Papua New Guinea, has both direct and indirect possessive constructions. Indirect possession is expressed with two different possessive markers, a and le, depending upon the relation between the possessor and the possessee. These morphemes mark a distinction between active and passive possession. Active possession, where a possessor is the agent in the event or the notional subject of a nominalized verb, is expressed by le-type, while passive possession, where a possessor is the patient in the event or the notional direct object of a nominalized verb, is expressed by a. The le-type and the a-type markers cannot stand next to one another. However, they can cooccur at different structural levels if the erstwhile direct object is a lexical noun phrase, and the le-type marker has in its scope the possessive construction that contains the a-type marker.

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