The semantic preference and information structure of the possessive construction with the verb you(have)

This paper argues that the possessive construction with the verb you(have)prefer to denote goodness(positive meanings)and plenty(subjectively large quantity).This preference can be demonstrated with the fact that the possessive construction strongly tends to exclude either a negative attribute or an attribute interpreted as subjectively small quantity of the object.This kind of the exclusion depends on the subclass of objects and modifiers.There are two factors:1)the possessive verb you(have)is inherently of the preference of being good and numerous;2)the requirement for the natural(default)focus to be located sentence-finally.In Chinese,the natural focus covers both the attribute and the head of the object instead of the attribute only.The inherent preference of being good and numerous requires that the informationally salient attribute keeps semantic concord to the head of the object to form a chunk with the head as the sentence-final focus.If the attribute violates the semantic preference of the possessive construction with you,the principle of focusing sentence-finally will be violated.