A comparative study of external possession in Spanish and English
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21825841 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Nathan Dwyer (University of Florida), Imanol Suárez-Palma (0000-0002-1935-7662, University of Florida) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 15 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-43 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-07 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1893-3211 • E-ISSN: 1893-3211 |
| Publisher | UiT The Arctic University of Norway (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.7557/1.15.1.8704 |
| OpenAlex | W7160545522 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 32 |
This paper compares external possession in Spanish and English. English typically uses internal possession to express inalienable relationships between a possessor and a body-part noun (BPN) (e.g., “James saw her arm”). However, like Spanish, it also permits external possession when the possessor appears as the verb’s internal argument and the BPN occurs in a locative PP (e.g., “Carlos hit him on the arm”; “Carlos lo golpeó en el brazo”). We argue that in both languages the possessor originates inside the DP containing the BPN and undergoes possessor raising to the specifier of the locative PP to receive case from the verb. A key difference emerges with instrumental PPs: Spanish allows external possession with external arguments (e.g., “James abrió la puerta con la/su mano”), whereas English does not (“James opened the door with *the/his hand”). Contra previous analyses, we show that instrumental PPs are adjuncts, blocking possessor raising. We attribute the cross-linguistic contrast to the availability of an implicit possessor in Spanish BPNs, modeled as PRO. This element is controlled by a local c-commanding antecedent, typically the external argument, yielding an inalienable interpretation. English lacks this option, requiring overt possessors and therefore favoring internal possession in such contexts
Irish · Locative case · Possessive · Specifier · Categorization, perception, and language · Neurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation
External Possession and Possessor Raising
Inalienable Possession, Primarily in French
Noun Phrase in the Generative Perspective
On Phases
Derivation by Phase
Severing the External Argument from its Verb
Possessor raising and structural variations within the v P domain
Me, mi, my
The Possessor That Ran Away From Home
Inalienable possession (and lack thereof) in Spanish
El español andino y el español bilingüe
An argument for phrasal spell-out
Inalienable possession constructions in French
Sideward Movement
Locality and anti-locality in Spanish DPs
An Implicit Projected Argument in Spanish Impersonal- and Passive-SeConstructions
Possessor raising and the structure of VP
Inalienable possession in copulative contexts and the DP-structure
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |