Adnominal Possession in Turoyo: New Evidence from the Kfarze Dialect

Кашинцева К. В.

This article explores the marking of adnominal possession in the Turoyo language. The language employs two sets of possessive suffixes (see Table 1 below) the distribution of which has been somewhat unclear. On the one hand, it has been suggested that these sets could be used interchangeably with nouns denoting body parts, kinship terms, and inherent properties. On the other hand, researchers claimed that some nouns cannot take one of these sets at all. My aim was to focus on the Kfarze dialect and on nominals indicating a part-whole relation, mostly terms for body parts. This study contends that usage of the second set is restricted to specific syntactic and semantic contexts. Moreover, instead of using the conventional terms “inalienable” and “alienable,” I adopt the terminology of idiosyncratic and non-idiosyncratic possession strategies. Arguments for using this terminology are laid out in Section 4 of the article. 

The article is structured as follows. Section 2 provides general information on Turoyo, while Section 3 outlines the methodology employed in this research. Sections 4 delves into the examination of the data, and Section 5 serves as the conclusion of the article. 

Keywords: Aramaic, formal syntax, formal linguistics, Turoyo, possessives

Publication based on the results of: Грамматика современных арамейских языков (2024)

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From Moscow to Baghdad: Studies on Middle Eastern Christianity in Memory of Nikolai Seleznyov

Brill, 2026.