Logos

CONSTRUCTIONcon.spa.dativo-posesivo

dativo posesivo

A pattern in which a clitic names the owner of the thing affected, so the clause states the relation of belonging without any possessive word.

The construction states possession by putting the owner in the dative position rather than inside the object phrase, and the two strategies are in complementary distribution: where the dative clitic is present the object carries a definite article and no possessive word, and where a possessive word is present the dative is not. The pattern is at its most rigid with body parts and clothing, where the possessive strategy is markedly worse, and it loosens as the possessed thing becomes more separable from its owner. What the dative adds over the possessive is that the owner is asserted to be affected by the event, which is why the construction is unavailable where the owner cannot plausibly be affected. It is stored because that affectedness is not predictable from the dative case alone.

statusstatus
documentedasserted, and the sources agree
provenanceprovenance
authoredwritten for Logos, from first principles
derivation statusderivation_status
unstatednobody has said whether it follows from anything
saliencesalience
No salience. Where no frequency source applies the object carries none, rather than a default or a guess (03-schema.md §3.5).
aliasesaliases
  • metalanguagepossessive dative
sourcessources
  • SOURCENueva gramática de la lengua española (2009)src.nueva-gramaticano page in v1
  • SOURCEA New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish (Butt and Benjamin)src.butt-benjaminno page in v1

Why this is a construction at all

construction.admission

Goldberg's admission test: a template earns storage either by being unpredictable or by being frequent.

admissionadmission
frequentit is stored because it recurs often enough to be learned whole

The slots

construction.slots

At least two, by the schema: fewer is not a multi-element template. Every filler is a link, never a name in prose.

  1. 0el sujetopositional: this slot is a place in the string, not a lexical requirement

    fillerslots[].filler
    No filler is named. For a positional slot that is the correct reading; for a lexical one it is a gap.
    functionslots[].fn
    FUNCTIONsujetofun.spa.sujeto

  2. 1el clítico dativo, que nombra al poseedorlexically specified: only the fillers below may occupy it

    fillerslots[].filler
    functionslots[].fn
    FUNCTIONcomplemento indirectofun.spa.complemento-indirecto

  3. 2el verbo transitivo, finitolexically specified: only the fillers below may occupy it

    fillerslots[].filler
    functionslots[].fn
    FUNCTIONnúcleofun.spa.nucleo

  4. 3el objeto poseído, con artículo definido y sin posesivopositional: this slot is a place in the string, not a lexical requirement

    fillerslots[].filler
    No filler is named. For a positional slot that is the correct reading; for a lexical one it is a gap.
    functionslots[].fn
    FUNCTIONcomplemento directofun.spa.complemento-directo

Slot template

4 slots: 2 constrained, 2 positional, 4 naming a grammatical function.

  1. el sujeto
    positional

    no lexical filler — this slot marks a position only

    names sujeto

  2. el clítico dativo, que nombra al poseedor
    constrained
    • clítico dativoclass

    names complemento indirecto

  3. el verbo transitivo, finito
    constrained
    • verboclass

    names núcleo

  4. el objeto poseído, con artículo definido y sin posesivo
    positional

    no lexical filler — this slot marks a position only

    names complemento directo

Confusable with

construction.confusable

Objects a reader is likely to mix up with this one, and the difference that separates them. The edge is symmetric and stored once, so this renders on both objects' pages from the one statement.

Everything joined to this object

One group per typed edge, in both directions. A1b guarantees no object node is an orphan, so this is the whole navigation: an object with no edges would have failed the build rather than reached this page.

What this object is a kind of

Walking this object's own `is-a` edges: what it is a kind of. Several branches from one object are several classification axes, not competing supertypes.

objects
1
places drawn
1
multi-parent
None in this view. This subgraph happens to be a tree, which the explorer draws as one without assuming it is one.

Siblings are listed by name, then by id to break ties. That is a display choice made here and not an order the graph asserts.

Fan-out per dimension

A4

One row per dimension, largest first. That is a display order, not a verdict: 03-schema.md declares no threshold above which fan-out is too much, so this reports the count and grades nothing.

  • case13 values
  • mood8 values
  • voice8 values
  • aspect7 values
  • aktionsart6 values
  • number6 values
  • person6 values
  • tense6 values
  • comparison4 values
  • evidentiality4 values
  • gender4 values
  • politeness4 values
  • valency4 values
  • animacy3 values
  • definiteness3 values
  • deixis3 values
  • finiteness2 values
  • information structure2 values
  • interrogativity2 values
  • polarity2 values
  • switch-reference2 values

What kinds of this object there are

Walking the `is-a` edges that point at this object: what kinds of it there are. An object reachable two ways is drawn in both places and is still one object.

objects
1
places drawn
1
multi-parent
None in this view. This subgraph happens to be a tree, which the explorer draws as one without assuming it is one.

Siblings are listed by name, then by id to break ties. That is a display choice made here and not an order the graph asserts.

has-a

edges.has-a

the parent carries this

this object carries

selects

edges.selects

the parent requires this elsewhere

this object requires, elsewhere

  • CLASSartículocls.spa.articulodocumented
    • conditionThe affected noun takes a definite article rather than a possessive determiner, and using both at once is what the construction excludes.

via

edges.via

this realizer, this way

this object realizes

derives

edges.derives

the why-chain

derived by