About the Non-Personal Definite Function of the Uralic 3rd Person Possessive Suffix
About the Non-Personal Definite Function of the Uralic 3rd Person Possessive Suffix

Summary/Abstract: Finno-Ugric, Selkup, Turkic and Tungusic share a common (preferred) use of the 3rd person possessive suffix (3Px) in the non-personal definite function. Based on the use of (Northern) Samoyedic languages one could imagine that in a number of Uralic languages the text meant for the addressee (= the 2nd person) sounds natural when determined by means of the 2Px, meaning something like 'the matter heard by you'. The 3Px usage is here related to a more general definiteness (in Samoyedic languages in case of the concepts 'sun', 'moon', 'sky', 'earth' etc., since these phenomena are determined by their unique and universal nature already, not by the listener’s hearing). Thus, it may be supposed that a non-personal general-definite function has always been inherent to the Uralic 3Px.

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