LSC has two possessives pronouns, poss and own, which are used to express possession of (i) kinship terms, (ii) concrete objects and (iii) abstract concepts, as in the examples below:
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a) brother poss3 fat.
‘His brother is fat.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 41)
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b) toy poss3 broken.
‘His toys are broken.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 41)
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c) america ixloc indian, language possa-b-c there_bea-b-c.
‘North American Indians each have their own language.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 48)
For body parts, personal pronouns are used as possessors, instead.
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ix3 face scratch1.
‘They scratched his face.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 41)
The pronoun poss consists of a bimanual sign combined with the mouthing [su]/[seu], literally 'his/her/their', regardless of the person that it refers to. As in the case of the pronominal paradigm, the orientation of the possessive pronoun depends on the location attributed to the possessor within the signing space [LEXICON 3.7.2].
In general, the use of poss is limited to secondand third person, as in the examples (a) and (b) below. However, it can also be used in contrastive contexts to mark first person as opposed to the rest, as in (c):
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a) book poss2 borrow.
‘Will you lend me your book?’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 40)
wh
b) group 1a tutor poss who.
‘Who is the tutor of class 1A?
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 40)
c) car poss2 poss1 use separate.
‘We have to use our own cars separately.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 40)
In contrastive contexts such as in (c) above, the possessive can co-occur with personal pronouns.
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cell phone poss3a ix3 aposs3b ix3 bposs1 ix1 all broken.
‘His cellphone, her cellphone and mine are all out of work.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 40)
The second possessive, own, is used to express emphatic possession. In neutral contexts, it expresses firstperson possession.
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a) federation own catalan.
‘My own Federation is the Catalan one.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 41)
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b) point-of-view own interesting.
‘My own point of view is very interesting.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 41)
However, own can also be used to refer to other than first person possessors, as shown in the example below.
wh
lsc own who.
‘Whose own language is LSC?’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 41)
Both the pronoun poss and own can appear with the construction marker of (‘de’) [SYNTAX 4.2].
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a) ix2 computer of poss2 ix3 steal.
‘He stole your computer.’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 40)
wh
b) lsc of own who.
‘Whose own language is LSC?’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 41)
In spite of the existence of the possessives explained above, LSC may also use personal pronouns to express possession if the possessor belongs to the group of discourse participants.
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ix2 computer ix3 type can.
‘Can s/he type on your computer?’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 37)
It is possible to double the pronominal possessor, but this alternative is interpreted as emphatic.
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ix2 computer ix2 ix3 type can.
‘Can s/he use your computer?’
(based on Quer & GRIN, 2008: 38)
As for the position of the possessives within the nominal phrase, both possand own appear after the possessed noun, but this is just obligatory in the case of poss [SYNTAX 4.2].
In the sentential domain, possession can be expressed using other devices apart from the possessive pronouns, such as the existential construction there-be [SYNTAX 2.1.5].