In linguistics, inalienable possession refers to the linguistic properties of certain nouns or nominal affixes based on their always being possessed. The semantic underpinning is that entities like body parts and relatives do not exist apart from a possessor. For example, a hand implies (someone's) hand, even if it is severed from the whole body. Likewise, a father implies (someone's) father. Such entities are inalienably possessed. Other things, like most artifacts and objects in nature, may be possessed or not. When these latter types of entities are possessed, the possession is alienable. Generally speaking, alienable possession is used for tangible things which you might cease to own or possess at some point, such as trade (e.g., "my money"), whereas inalienable possession refers to a perpetual relationship which cannot be readily severed (e.g., "my mother"). Many languages reflect this distinction, although in different ways.
Read more about Inalienable Possession: Examples, As An Example of A Possessive Class System, Variation Between Languages
Famous quotes containing the words inalienable and/or possession:
“A separation situation is different for adults than it is for children. When we were very young children, a physical separation was interpreted as a violation of our inalienable rights....As we grew older, the withdrawal of love, whether that meant being misunderstood, mislabeled or slighted, became the separation situation we responded to.”
—Roger Gould (20th century)
“Between women love is contemplative; caresses are intended less to gain possession of the other than gradually to re-create the self through her; separateness is abolished, there is no struggle, no victory, no defeat; in exact reciprocity each is at once subject and object, sovereign and slave; duality become mutuality.”
—Simone De Beauvoir (1908–1986)