Possessorfirst

Possessorfirst is a term used in linguistic typology to describe noun phrases in which the possessor precedes the possessed noun within the noun phrase. This ordering foregrounds the owner of an object before the object itself, as in forms like John’s book, where the possessor John comes before the head noun book. The term is used to distinguish this pattern from alternatives in which the possessed noun precedes the possessor or where possession is expressed with an of-phrase or similar construction.

In possessorfirst structures, the possessor can be a lexical noun or a pronoun, often with possessive morphology or a genitive marker embedded in the syntactic construction. The possessed noun may bear its own determiner or case-marking, depending on the language. This configuration interacts with other noun phrase elements such as adjectives, numerals, and modifiers, and may be analyzed in various ways across languages—by genitive case marking, clitic possession, or pre-nominal possessors.

Possessorfirst is often contrasted with possessed-first or of-phrase constructions, where the main NP begins with the possessed item and the possessor is linked through a prepositional phrase or a post-nominal marker. Some languages exhibit both orders under different discourse conditions or syntactic pressures, leading to variation in how possession is encoded. The term helps typologists describe cross-language patterns and to categorize languages by the relative position of possessor and possessed within NPs.

The concept is one facet of broader discussions about genitive systems, possessor agreement, and noun phrase architecture. It is used in descriptive grammar, typology surveys, and language documentation to map how different languages encode possession.