Possessive constructions in Turkish

- Genitives in genitive-possessive constructions (GP) in Turkish are argumental.
- Genitives which can appear without a possessive suffix (PFG) are modifiers.
- Possessive compounds (PC) pattern with GPs in that the non-head is not a modifier.
- Syntactically, both GPs and PCs involve an nP layer which introduces arguments.
- PFGs are simple DP-level adjuncts.

This study investigates the syntax and semantics of possessive constructions at the phrasal level in Turkish, namely, genitive-possessive constructions (GP), possessive free genitives (PFG) and possessive compounds (PC). Semantically, the constructions fall into two types based on the argument-modifier relation of the possessor to the possessee (Partee and Borschev, 2003). Genitives in GPs are argumental, while the ones in PFGs are modifiers. PCs also pattern with GPs in that the non-head is a non-referential argument. The relation established between the two nouns in GPs and PCs relies on the lexical properties of the head noun. The relation modifier genitives form with the head in PFGs, on the other hand, is pragmatically defined. At the level of morpho-syntax, the argument modifier split is signaled by the presence or absence of the morpheme POSS, which surfaces only in GPs and PCs. We argue that POSS is a valency marker indicating the introduction of an argument to an NP.