On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 10:38:43 EST, Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@...> wrote:
>In a message dated 1/23/2005 6:44:35 AM Eastern Standard Time,
>ray.brown@FREEUK.COM writes:
>
>>> Is it all possible that a preposition may (with time) affix iself to
the
>>> END of the word it acts upon, even if its former position was at its
head?
>>> E.g. could 'or (loc.prep.) mar (=house)' become 'maror'? If so, is
such a
>>> change likely?
>
>>The change could only come about, it seems to me, if at some stage the
>>adpositions for some reason habitually became postposited rather than
>>preposited, i.e. _or_ habitually got place _after_ the noun phrase. But
>>why that should happen, I don't know.
>
>I would think that if a language is changing from preposition to
>postpositional, then, instead of prepositions moving to become
postpositions, it might be
>more common for newly-formed postpositions to come into existence
gradually as
>the older prepositions gradually drop out of use. Then the profile of the
>language would change without any individual word actually chaning from
>preposition to postposition.
That's an interesting idea! Any comments anyone? How might these 'new'
postpositions come about? What type of structures might you suggest? These
new pospositions would be sourced from within the existing vocabulary of
the language, what words might I use?
Nic