Two types of possessive forms in English

In this paper we distinguish between the two instances of word-final -s characterizing English possessive forms: (i) the pronominal final -s of his̄ and (ii) the full-DP final -s of Mary’s̄. We argue that the pronouns are morphologically complex, consisting of a nominative pronoun (he, you) and the endings -s or -r, which correspond to the copular forms is and are (he’s̄, you’re). As such, they are not real possessive markers, but rather, sg./pl. copulas, which together with the nominative pronoun yield a possessive pronominal form (his̄, your̄). We adopt the idea that the agreement between pronoun and copula is triggered in a spec-head configuration in a DP-internal agreement projection [E. Ritter, Nat. Lang. Linguist. Theory 13 (1995) 405; R.-M. Déchaine, M. Wiltschko, Linguist. Inq. 33.3 (2002) 409]. We further argue, in line with Kayne [Stud. Linguist. 47.1 (1993) 3] (and in contrast with den Dikken [M. den Dikken, (Anti-)agreement in DP, in: R. van Bezooijen, R. Kager (Eds.), Linguistics in the Netherlands, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 1998, p. 95; On the structural representation of possession and agreement: the case of (anti-)agreement in Hungarian possessed nominal phrases, in: I. Kenesi (Ed.), Crossing Boundaries: Advances in the Theory of Central and Eastern European Languages, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 1999, p. 137], that the -s of Mary’s̄ book and a book of Mary’s̄ is not a copula, but rather a (singular) number marker akin to that found in the verbal domain (she eats̄). Plural possessive DPs (the kids’ mother), according to our analysis, are plural DPs (the kids) further marked with a null plural number morpheme ‘ø’ (the kids’ø mother). We claim that this is the same as the (null) plural morpheme found in the verbal domain (she eats̄ vs. they eatø).