PREDICATE NOMINAL AND TRANSITIVE VERBAL EXPRESSIONS OF INTERPERSONAL-RELATIONS

Languages can potentially make use of two types of constructions, pred icate nominal or transitive verbal, to express kinship relations betwe en two individuals. These two types may coexist in a given lanuage as either virtually interchangeable or semantically distinct alternatives . In several North American languages the two types have become confla ted into a single split paradigm. The characteristics of these split s ystems are sufficiently parallel cross-linguistically to suggest that they are the result, in part at least, of general properties that cons train or influence linguistic structure. We claim that this variation in morphosyntax responds to two factors: an underlying tension in poss essive relations, which can be naturally given or socially mediated; a nd the relative pragmatic or propositional orientation of transitive v erbal versus predicate nominal constructions. Additionally, we show th at the way split paradigms develop may result from the interaction of pragmatic and morphosyntactic facets of linguistic systems as communic ative devices for conveying propositional content and achieving pragma tic goals.