Inalienable Possession

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.