Re: Adpositions gaining new uses

Henrik Theiling wrote:
>
>Maybe it's a topic-comment related thing?  Is this typical for topic
>marking languages?  Both Dutch and German mark the topic by word order
>already (initial unstressed position).  Then how do strongly
>topic-comment structured languages handle this, like spoken French for
>example?  Or Japanese, Korean, or Mandarin?  Does anyone know?
>
Indonesian qualifies in many respects as a Topic/Comment language, and you
can do a lot of these:

For ex. in "Ali ____ ke pasar" (Ali ___ to (the) market) you can insert==

nothing: Ali [went/is going/will go] to the mkt.
almost any of the time adverbs/auxiliaries: sudah 'has (gone)', harus (has
to,...), ingin/mau (wants to...), dulu (used to..., formerly...), mesti
(must...), baru (just, recently...)  and others.

Quite common is "(Saya) harus ke belakang" '(I) have to go to the restroom'
(lit. 'to behind')

With _di_ 'in/at' it would work about the same, and to some extent with
_dari_ 'from'; and of course you could substitute almost any location noun
for "pasar"; other auxs. would work with other nouns, e.g. "Ali pernah ke
Amerika" 'Ali once (went) to America); "apa sudah pernah di Jakarta?" 'Have
you (~has he) ever been in Jakarta?'

My contact with Indo. toddlers was nil, so I don't know if they could say
"(saya) mau di(?) bahumu" (I want on your shoulder(s) ) :-)))  In fact, I'm
having a hard time thinking up reasonable "mau di..." sentences-- oh, maybe
Harus (etc.) di atas 'it has to [go/be] on top".

ObConlang: And so, I suppose some or many of these might also be possible in
Kash, and almost certainly in Gwr, but I don't think I've specifically dealt
with the possibility.