Transcategorization phenomena with other pos-values

Confusion can be made between the PoS values possessive pronoun and noun, possessive pronoun and possessive determiner.

This last delimitation problem can be solved with the help of a syntactic criterion:

Syntactic criterion:

- the possessive pronoun, which is morphologically identical to the corresponding adjective (this does not happen in English, e.g. my book/mine), is recognized with respect to the pronominal adjective, since it is inserted in an NP obligatorily preceded by an article and not accompanied by the noun:
Vuoi una penna? Prendi la mia (and not * Prendi mia).

The corresponding determiner (pronominal adjective) can be also preceded by the article, but is by necessity linked to the noun:
Prendi la mia penna

A particular lexical class of nouns, the family names, can be preceded or not by the article:
mia sorella/la mia sorella (but not * la mia madre).

pos=pron, type=poss pos=det, type=poss

D e s c r i p t i o n E x a m p l e D e s c r i p t i o n E x a m p l e

pronoun questa casa e' meglio della mia/pron   determiner la mia/det   casa e' nuova

e' il mio/pron   mio/det   padre verra' domani

quel cane e' il nostro/pron   il nostro/det   fratello e' la'

non spende il denaro degli altri, ma il proprio/pron   Mario vide Carlo con la propria/det   moglie

Antoher typical transcategorization phenomenon verifies when the possessive pronoun is used absolutely as a noun, becoming synonymous of the understood noun itself and giving rise to a sort of fixed expressions. Some dictionaries/grammars do not account for this phenomenon among the delimitation problems between pronoun and noun but still consider the absolute use as a pronominal one. Anyway, some examples are accounted for here and in the noun section:

pos=noun pos=pron, type=poss

D e s c r i p t i o n E x a m p l e D e s c r i p t i o n E x a m p l e

noun = parents i miei/noun   sono piu' anziani dei tuoi pronoun questi abiti sono piu' malconci dei miei/pron  

noun = what is due to me datemi il mio/noun   tuo figlio e' piu' grande del mio/pron  

noun = opinion voglio dire la mia/noun   la tua carica e' piu' importante della mia/pron  

noun = letter dopo che e'arrivata l'ultima tua/noun   la mia volonta' e' meno forte della tua/pron  

noun = allies arrivano i nostri/noun   sono piu' belli dei nostri/pron