Adnominal Possessives and Adjectivehood in Old English

This study investigates morphological and syntactic properties distinguishing inflected adnominal possessives from uninflected ones. Both types of possessives were morphologically differentiated in terms of etymology and the presence of strong adjective endings. In addition, dislocation into the postnominal position was permitted only to inflected possessives. These asymmetries can be elucidated by the hypothesis that inflected possessives shared adjectivehood with ordinary adjectives whereas uninflected ones did not. Inflected possessives carried strong adjective inflection to mark adjectivehood rather than (in)definiteness. Subsequently, they should be assumed to be merged as a specifier of a functional projection below DP relevant to adjectival agreement. They could end up in the postnominal position after N-to-D movement across them. In contrast, the position of merge for uninflected possessives should be the specifier of DP due to their lack of adjectivehood, which excludes the possibility that they could occupy the postnominal position as a result of N-to-D movement.