Alina Russkikh (HSE University) Adnominal Possessive Constructions in Christian Urmi (Neo-Aramaic) from a Typological Perspective

The Northeastern Neo-Aramaic (NENA) varieties are a group of dialects or closely related languages of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family. This study aims to distinguish the inventory of adnominal possessive constructions and to describe the formal and syntactic properties of each construction in a particular variety of NENA, the Christian Urmi, from a typological perspective. Data were collected in the village of Urmiya, Krasnodar Region (Russia) and in Verin Dvin, Ararat Province (Armenia) during field trips in 2021, 2022 and 2024. The presentation will also focus on the locus of marking in adnominal possessive constructions and its evolution. Based on the applied syntactic tests, I will propose the new interpretation of the basic construction with the particle ət attached to the head, analyzing its type of marking as detached rather than head marking.