Thématicité et Possessivité en Roumain

It is well known that syntactic configurations such as active vs passive are not interchangeable in all contexts and that they can be interpreted adequately only within the framework of the discourse. It is our contention that precisely the same phenomenon underlies the way in which possession is expressed in Romanian, and we argue that Romanian exploits the possibility of two distinct predicative relationships in this respect: "Possessor possesses possessum" and "possessum belongs to Possessor". A similar explanation is given for the choice between lui and sau with a third person Possessor, a fact of Romanian grammar not hitherto understood.