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Ownership language informs ownership psychology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2023

David Kemmerer*
Affiliation:
Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA kemmerer@purdue.edu; https://hhs.purdue.edu/directory/david-kemmerer/

Abstract

Many languages grammatically distinguish between alienable and inalienable possessions. The latter are sometimes restricted to body parts, but they often include other kinds of personally significant entities too. These cross-linguistic patterns suggest that one's most precious owned objects tend to fall within a complex self system that includes not only the core (corporeal) self, but also the extended (noncorporeal) self.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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