Pertensive

Pertensive marking is to head-marking languages what possessive marking is to dependent-marking languages.^[1] For example, in English, a dependent-marking language, possession in the phrase "a person's rodent" is indicated by the placement of the possessive suffix "'s" on the dependent grammatical constituent, "person's," and the head constituent, "rodent," is left unmarked.

In contrast, Shilluk, a language in South Sudan, places a pertensive affix on the head (e.g., dúup = "rodent", dû́uup = "rodent belonging to").^[2] Other languages with pertensive marking are Nungon (in Papua New Guinea),^[3] Hungarian, Mansi, and Khanty (both in Siberia).^[4] Some languages, such as Martuthunira (in Australia), have both possessive and pertensive marking.^[5]

The term was coined by the linguist Robert M. W. Dixon in 2011.^[6]

Although one of the main uses of "ezāfe" in Persian is pertensive, it has other functions.