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Adposition or Case for Ground of Motion

From:Chris Bates <chris.maths_student@...>
Date:Monday, September 19, 2005, 13:12
Something else I was wondered about that I posted on the ZBB also:

In English, we don't always use "at" with the ground with verbs of
motion etc. For example:

I went from my home to the cinema (ground: home, verb encodes path away
from ground)
I came to this house from the road (ground: this house, verb encodes
path towards ground)

Is there any language that would say something like:

I went at my home to the cinema
I came at this house from the road

In other words, use an adposition that's always used to give the ground,
and not do it in a similar way to English? I know that some languages
(eg, Spanish) use the same adposition to indicate location and
destination (in the case of Spanish, a) but that isn't the same thing
since you can see that in my examples the ground can also be rendered as
from in both English and Spanish, depending on the verb involved.
On second thought, go and come doesn't necessarily imply that the ground
is reached at least in English, so these might be better given as:

I went at my home to the cinema (ground marking pretend English)
= I went *away from* my home to the cinema

I came at this house from the road (ground marking pretend English)
= I came *towards* this house from the road

Reply

tomhchappell <tomhchappell@...>