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-的: genitive of the sphere

Bibliography

Harm Pinkster, The Oxford Latin Syntax, i (Oxford, 2015).
完權,「的」的性質與功能 (rev. edn, Peking, 2018).
Joshua Whatmough, 'Grammatica quaedam', The Phoenix, 2/3 (1948), 65–72.

-的 is a genitive enclitic. It can attach to a core or peripheral argument, or to a modifier within an NP.

The most insightful paper to date on the genitive case is Whatmough (1948). Scholars like Pinkster (2015: 1223), by constrast, mistook the history of grammatical labels for the history of grammar, oblivious to the fact that Latin had only one genitive.

Info

The history of grammatical labels remains to be written. For now, see the Historicised Grammar project.

Warning

Wan's (2018: 213) definition of -的 as a referent marker which enhances the (cognitive) salience of the referent is a fudge.