This paper examines prenominal von‐possessives in German and relates them to Saxon Genitives and Possessor Doublings in that language. Von‐possessives are prepositional possessives that precede determiners and are stressed. Saxon Genitives and Possessor Doublings are nominal possessives that pattern together but have properties different from von‐possessives. It is proposed that there are two left peripheral positions in the German noun phrase: Spec,DP and Spec,LPP. Nominal possessives move to Spec,DP checking the definiteness feature on D. In contrast, prepositional possessives move to the specifier of a higher Left Periphery Phrase checking a discourse feature. Despite these differences, this paper proposes that all possessive constructions have the same basic inner makeup. It is shown that non‐possessive elements can also surface in Spec,LPP. This dichotomy between nominal possessives and preposed PPs provides another argument that the nominal left periphery is more complex than usually assumed. However, it will be shown that in German the nominal left periphery is different from that of the clause.

中文翻译：

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德语名词短语的左边缘

本文研究了德语中的名词性 von-possessives，并将它们与该语言中的 Saxon Genitives 和 Possessor Doublings 联系起来。Von-possessives 是介词所有格，在限定词之前并被强调。Saxon Genitives 和 Possessor Doublelings 是名义上的所有格，它们一起模式但具有与 von-possessives 不同的属性。建议在德语名词短语中有两个左外围位置：Spec,DP 和 Spec,LPP。名义所有格移动到 Spec,DP 检查 D 上的确定性特征。相反，介词所有格移动到更高的左外围短语的说明符检查话语特征。尽管存在这些差异，本文提出所有所有格结构都具有相同的基本内在构成。结果表明，非占有元素也可以在 Spec,LPP 中出现。名义所有格和前置 PP 之间的这种二分法提供了另一个论点，即名义左边缘比通常假设的更复杂。然而，将显示在德语中名义上的左边缘与该条款的不同。