# All Slavic languages: possessive dative



## Orlin

DenisBiH said:


> Expressing possession by possessive dative is I believe a South Slavic trait.


 
Prisvojni dativ definitivno postoji u bugarskom (kako sam rekao u postu br. 11 ovog threada: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1724837), mislim da i u makedonskom, da li ga ima u slovenačkom ne znam.


----------



## DenisBiH

Orlin said:


> Prisvojni dativ definitivno postoji u bugarskom (kako sam rekao u postu br. 11 ovog threada: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=1724837), mislim da i u makedonskom, da li ga ima u slovenačkom ne znam.



Upravo sam se toga sjetio kad me je pallina89 priupitao.  Mislim da je TriglavNationalPark dao primjer za slovenski na False friends temi (Kdo mi je ukradel stolico?)

Koliko vidim zabilježen je još u starocrkvenoslavenskom (OCS)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Church_Slavonic#Basis_and_local_influences



> The Southern Slavic nature of the language is evident from the following variations:
> ...
> morphosyntactic use of the dative possessive case in personal pronouns and nouns: rǫka ti; otъpuštenьe grěxomъ;


----------



## DenisBiH

A correction may be in order. Possessive dative seems not to be a specifically South Slavic trait as seems to be suggested by that wiki article on OCS, though its usage patterns do vary among Slavic languages, from absent / very rare to frequently used.

http://www.seelrc.org/glossos/issues/3/saric.pdf

"On the semantics of the “dative of possession” in the Slavic languages: An analysis on the basis of Russian, Polish, Croatian/Serbian and Slovenian examples", Ljiljana Šarić


----------



## sokol

Mod note:
Moved from this thread.


----------



## sokol

I'm almost a 100% sure that this construction is perfectly valid in Slovene too. 

Edit - well, obviously it is as Triglav has listed the false friend in the other thread with the same grammatical construction.


----------



## TriglavNationalPark

As others have said, Slovenian also has the possessive dative in some cases (I suppose that's what it's called), but it doesn't use it nearly to the extent that BCS uses it.

For example, BCS has constructions such as:

*Majka mi je bolesna.* = My mother is ill.

Such constructions don't work in standard Slovenian:

*Mati mi je bolna. Moja mati je bolna.*


----------



## Awwal12

I'm afraid that in Russian, despite the wide use of different dative constructions (ему нужен доктор - he needs a doctor, мне нравится картошка - I like potatoes, девушке хотелось бы чаю - the girl would like some tea, etc.), the possessive dative does not exist.

P.S.: Possessive constructions are formed with use of possessive pronouns, nouns in genitive and, very seldom, possessive adjectives (their use decreased dramatically in the last two centuries).


----------



## Azori

Slovak has the possessive dative, too:

Mamka mi je chorá. My mom is ill.
Poznám mu otca. I know his father.
Ušiel nám pes. Our dog ran away.


----------



## TriglavNationalPark

lior neith said:


> Slovak has the possessive dative, too:
> 
> Mamka mi je chorá. My mom is ill.
> Poznám mu otca. I know his father.
> Ušiel nám pes. Our dog ran away.


 
Here's a comparison with Slovenian:

*Mama/mati mi je bolna.*  *WRONG*

*Poznam mu očeta.*  *WRONG*

*Ušel nam je pes.*  *CORRECT*

Unfortunately, I have no idea *why* the last one is correct in Slovenian, while the first two aren't.


----------



## DenisBiH

What about double DP? 

I could conceive of saying e.g.

Jaranu mi sestra diplomirala.

My friend's sister graduated.


----------



## Orlin

DenisBiH said:


> What about double DP?
> 
> I could conceive of saying e.g.
> 
> Jaranu mi sestra diplomirala.
> 
> My friend's sister graduated.


 
Zanimljivo, da li je to specifično bosanski fenomen?
Međutim, ja nisam ga razumeo dok nisam pročitao engleski prevod. Takođe ne znam da li je to razumljivo za sve izvorne govornike BCS.


----------



## Duya

Orlin said:


> Zanimljivo, da li je to specifično bosanski fenomen?



(switching back to English, because of other foreros) 

The noun "jaran" ("drug") is specifically Bosnian . 

Regarding the double possessive dative... I'm not sure. As Denis said himself, it's "conceivable" but I'm not sure if anyone would actually utter it today. I would probably use single PD: 

_Mom drugu je sestra diplomirala._

or genitive (more formal, perhaps in written but not in spoken language):

_Sestra mog druga je diplomirala_.

Denis's example

_Drugu mi je sestra diplomirala.

_sounds as if coming from epic poetry. I'm fairly sure one could find similar examples in folk poetry... there's even one on the tip of my tongue, but it escapes me.

However, I've been googling a bit for similar expression, and I found quite a bit of hits for e.g. "prijatelju mi je". For example, the first hit:

_*Prijatelju mi* je rođendan za dva dana_.

sounds completely natural, but I'm not sure if it's an example of double PD; I can't wrap my head around syntactic analysis at this moment. <coffee break>


----------



## DenisBiH

Here's another example, I think.



> *Bratu mi je zazvonio mobitel* i on je rekao da ne može razgovarati jer da mu "panduri" zapisuju podatke.


Or here, somewhat darker "*bratu mi *je granata odbila *nogu*,"

Googling for "bratu mi" shows some more examples, including hits for forum/blog posts with "bratu/sestri mi (je (bio)) rođendan" similar to Duya's example etc. I don't know, maybe it's not used very often, but I wouldn't assign it exclusively to poetry just yet. 

I'm curious about Duya's comment - is there another way of interpreting it rather than PD? Indirect object?

I've actually been wondering myself about where the line of separation would be between indirect object and possessive dative.

Vidio sam mu majku (I saw his mother) - this is PD right?
Dao sam mu knjigu (I gave the book to him) - this is IO right?

Or could it be that PD is somehow genetically linked to such IO constructs? I'm not a linguist though.


----------



## Duya

DenisBiH said:


> I'm curious about Duya's comment - is there another way of interpreting  it rather than PD? Indirect object?
> 
> I've actually been wondering myself about where the line of separation  would be between indirect object and possessive dative.



That was my line of thinking, too. I had my doubts about construction 

"Danas je rođendan Marku"

but, after a sufficient amount of coffee , that must be the PD. 



DenisBiH said:


> Here's another example, I think.
> 
> Or here, somewhat darker "*bratu mi *je granata odbila *nogu*,"
> 
> Googling for "bratu mi" shows some more examples, including hits for forum/blog posts with "bratu/sestri mi (je (bio)) rođendan" similar to Duya's example etc. I don't know, maybe it's not used very often, but I wouldn't assign it exclusively to poetry just yet.



On second thought, you were right. I had some initial difficulties accepting "Drugu mi je sestra...", but it's structurally identical with "Drugu mi je rođendan..." after all. So no, it's not limited to poetry; I stand corrected.


----------



## DenisBiH

Btw, Duya, just tried your example on my mother. She correctly understood "Drugu mi je sestra diplomirala" and according to her it didn't sound too strange, but she did add she would rather say it as "Sestra mog druga je diplomirala" (the more formal version, I hadn't suggested it to her prior to the "experiment")

Funny, but on the other hand just an impromtu experiment which may not mean much.


----------



## DenisBiH

An interesting note by Šarić (from the article linked to above)



> It can also be ambiguous whether a dative expression in a sentence is the indirect object, the DP, or the dative of the beneficiary,20 cf. example (24):
> 
> (24) Očistio miDat je sobu. [Cro]
> ‘He cleaned my room/He cleaned the room for me.’



However much of the text is slightly beyond me without an in-depth analysis (cognitive dative networks and such)


----------



## Orlin

Ja bih isto rekao/ napisao "Sestra mog druga je diplomirala" - ne mogu da objasnim zašto, možda pod uticajem drigih jezika koje govorim (najverovatnije ruskog).


----------



## DenisBiH

Some rather poetic examples of PD from times past. 

_Pjesma od Bagdata_ (The song of Baghdad)



> pa krenuše sa grada Stambola,
> ravno poljem na *obalu moru*.





> sa Pazara polju Trgovištu,
> s Trgovišta niz *Bosni gradove*.



_Hasanaginica_



> i pobježe Hasanaginica,
> da vrat lomi *kuli *niz *pendžere*.





> A kad bili *agi* mimo *dvora*,
> dvi je ćerce s pendžera gledahu,


----------

