Possession and association in Galo language and culture

Abstract

This chapter primarily discusses the grammar and semantics of possession and related structures in Galo, a Tibeto-Burman language of the Western Tani subgroup spoken in central Arunachal Pradesh state, North East India. Following this introduction, 2 discusses possession in the noun phrase, while predicative possession is discussed in 3. Sections 4 and 5 adopt a cultural-evolutionary perspective, claiming that the robust grammatical expression of possession in Galo is not mirrored by similarly robust cultural concepts of ownership and privacy. It is therefore suggested that a more general concept of ASSOCIATION is more likely to underlie the linguistic expression of 'possession' than is POSSESSION itself - in Galo and, quite likely, in other languages.