As An Example of A Possessive Class System
In general, the alienable-inalienable distinction is an example of a binary possessive class system, i.e., a language in which two kinds of possession are distinguished (alienable and inalienable) instead of just one, as in English. The alienability distinction is the most common kind of binary possessive class system, but it is not the only one. Furthermore, some languages have more than just two different possessive classes: on the more extreme end of the scale, the Anêm language of Papua New Guinea has at least 20.
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Famous quotes containing the words possessive, class and/or system:
“The narcissistic, the domineering, the possessive woman can succeed in being a “loving” mother as long as the child is small. Only the really loving woman, the woman who is happier in giving than in taking, who is firmly rooted in her own existence, can be a loving mother when the child is in the process of separation.”
—Erich Fromm (20th century)
“I am both a public and a private school boy myself, having always changed schools just as the class in English in the new school was taking up Silas Marner, with the result that it was the only book in the English language that I knew until I was eighteen—but, boy, did I know Silas Marner!”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary masterplan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people’s own failure as individuals.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)