Periphrastic Genitive Constructions in English and Norwegian

What is it about?

This chapter investigates periphrastic genitives in English and Norwegian realized by a PP with of and til (‘to’), respectively. Even if the resources are similar between the languages (periphrastic expression vs. an s-genitive), the frequency and use of the expressions are not. A key difference concerns the animacy of the possessor, which promotes the s-genitive in English and the periphrastic genitive in Norwegian. English and Norwegian periphrastic genitives also differ as to the meaning relations between the possessor and the possessum. Thus, most translations of periphrastic genitives are noncongruent. This indicates that the of-genitive has a wider meaning than the Norwegian til-genitive. In contrast, Norwegian uses a variety of prepositions to distinguish different possessive(-like) relations.

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