Verbal Expression of Possession in Slovene and Russian

Abstract

The semantic analysis of the verb imeti 'to have' opened a basic semantic relationship with the verb biti [Mloc] based on three transformational possibilities, of which the most typical for possessiveness are the transformations into possessive genitive and/or the adjective derived from it and into spatial adverbial phrase. Based on these transformations, the verb imeti was confirmed as a special way of somebody being situated in the space in relation to the basic orientation point, i.e., possessor. - In Russian, the majority of the presented meaning of the Slovene verb imeti are expressed with the phrasal verb bytʹ u, where the possessor is expressed with the genitive and possessed with the nominative. Considering that the Russian construction is originally closely connected with the expression of location, the particularly interesting transformation of the possessive construction is into a sentence with the meaning of location, which requires changes in word order and a different sentence pattern.