Abstract
Western Transcarpathian Romani (WTR) is a small cluster of closely related Romani dialects spoken in a western part of Transcarpathian Ukraine. In WTR the construction of predicative possession exhibits signs of incipient convergence with an East Slavic pattern, presenting an example of how contact of two typologically similar structures enables language change.
In my talk I describe phases of the change, based on the cross-dialectal data that also take into account the sociolinguistic variability. It is shown that initially the contact-induced construction is functionally constrained; it occurs in a single subdomain of possession, viz. in temporary possession, while marking of alienable possession remains conservative.
In a subsequent phase the innovative construction extends to other subdomains at the expense of the conservative structure, and eventually it functionally matches the East Slavic pattern.