On Some Strategies for Expressing Attribution in the Orok Language

The article examines strategies for expressing attributive relations in languages of different typologies to implement national communicative behavior and reflect the semantic-syntactic features of Tungus-Manchu languages. In the Tungus-Manchu languages, where the class of adjectives is quite sparse, attributive semantics is realized by morphosyntactic means: proper attributives, possessive constructions, and possession constructions. In the Tungus-Manchu languages, non-possession constructions are used to express negative attributive meanings, forming possessive adjectives with the negative particle -ana, which semantically correspond to the Russian negative adjectives with the prefixes не- and без-. The structure of an attributive construction traditionally consists of at least two components: a definition (an adjective as the main means of expressing attributive semantics) and a definitum (a name of nominative semantics, which in Russian, for example, indicates the categorial characteristics of a defining adjective: number, case, and gender). Neutral, for example Russian ‘про солдатск=ую наград=у‘ or ‘по старой железн=ой дорог=е‘. In possessive constructions (noun + noun in possessive form), the relationships are realized at the level of word order: the first component – possessor – is a noun, the second substantivally expressed component is definite, the connection between them is established by possessive suffixes that reflect the personal number of the possessor. In the Tungus-Manchu languages, there are different types of possessive constructions, substantival and pronominal, which differ in the grammatical affiliation of the possessor (the noun itself or a pronoun-noun). Possessive constructions are formalized by possessive adjectives and are represented in the Tungus-Manchu languages as one-component but semantically complex constructions that realize the semantics of the phrase (‘to possess something denoted as a nominal base: to have something denoted as a base’ – a noun) and as two-component constructions: The first component is a noun denoting a characteristic feature by quantity or quality, quite regularly in the instrumentalis form (a form without case indicators is acceptable) and a possessive adjective. Adjectives in this category exclusively fill a postposition in relation to the defined object. Semantic criteria regulate the qualification of possessive constructions expressing attributive relationships: As equivalents of the definitions agreed upon in Russian, some components characterize the inalienable properties of a subject – a person or another living being (аси=лу ‘женой обладающий = женатый’, геда=ди путтэ=лу ‘одним ребенком не обладающий = бездетный’). When denoting alienable properties, the semantics of the adjective possession corresponds to the inconsistent definitions of the Russian language (нари куче=лу ‘человек, ножом обладающий = человек с ножом’).

attribution, possessiveness, possessive construction, grammatical status of the possessor, constructions of possession and non-possession