Corpus study reveals possessive phrases often point to important subsequent referents in texts.
This article presents a corpus study of possessive noun phrases in French. Possessive determiners are usually presented as determiners dedicated to the first mention of referents, which is not always the case. The study presented in this paper shows that in subsequent mentions, possessive noun phrases designate referents that can be important in the text, and which are generally humans linked to central characters in the text.
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Manuélian et al. (2026) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: