meaninggenitive

Meaninggenitive is a proposed term in linguistic typology for a genitive-like marking that encodes the semantic relation of meaning between nouns, rather than possession, origin, or attribution. In this view, a head noun receives or interacts with a dependent noun to specify what kind of meaning is associated with the head, such as content, sense, interpretation, or semantic source.

Morphology and syntax are hypothetical in nature. Meaninggenitive could be realized as a suffix, clitic, or separate linker that marks the dependent noun as providing the meaning related to the head. The relation may be expressed in head-final or head-initial word orders, depending on the language, and it could appear in noun-noun compounds or in constructions akin to possessive phrases that express semantic rather than quantitative or ownership relations.

Typologically, meaninggenitive attempts to unify several cross-linguistic patterns where a genitive-like construction signals meaning-related relations, such as content, sense, or interpretation. While many languages use genitives or classifiers to mark content or source, there is no broad consensus on a distinct, separable meaninggenitive category in the literature. Some analysts prefer to treat such functions as subtypes of existing genitive roles (for example, genitives of content or source) rather than as a separate category.

In practice, the term is most useful in theoretical discussions or constructed languages designed to explore nuanced semantic relations in noun-noun compounds. Critics argue that it risks conflating established genitive functions with a new, potentially unnecessary label.