Re: Tzeltal's got only one preposition?!

From: "ROGER MILLS" <rfmilly@...>
Sent: Sunday, April 11, 2004 2:11 AM
Subject: Re: Tzeltal's got only one preposition?!

> For some reason I get a "page not found" there, but anyway,[...]
The one who saved that file on their server seemingly did not know that
one should avoid spacebars in filenames when publishing a file on the
web... The link is

www.seasite.niu.edu/Tagalog/Grammar%20Activities/Grammar%201/Markers/Sa&
Kay.htm

That you got a 404 error is also my fault: I deleted the %20's (escape
string for " " in URLs) and replaced them by " "'s, so maybe stupid
Outlook Express has deleted them when submitting this file to the
server. I don't know, but I'm sorry.

> [...] I'd be
> suspicious of any claim that Tagalog (or any other language) has only
one
> preposition.
I'm too, so I'm asking.

> It's true that "prepositions" as we know them are in rather
> short supply in Indonesian/Tagalog and relatives, but there are plenty
of
> ways around that.
As you and Ph. D. showed us ...

> Tag. also has "prepositions" kay = 'for' (replaces sa with personal
names),
> and "mula" ('beginning') = 'from'---- I confess I don't know Tag. grammar,
> but I _was_ familiar with these two from other contexts, which made me
doubt
> the "one preposition" claim.
"Kay" was also mentioned ... well, I guess I haven't read close enough again
:(

> Keep in mind that even in Engl. and other familiar langs., the class of
> prepositions is a mixed bag of unanalyzable unitary forms (in, at, by, up)
> plus a bunch of derived/compounded forms whose history is only
occasionally
> clear to the average speaker-- above? below, beneath, before, after,
inside,
> outside, into, out of, on top of, via, per, by means of...
So you really can do with comparably few prepositions, unlike English ...
Thank you!

> And Trebor wrote (the source of this thread I think):
> >
> > Unfortunately I can't answer your question--I'd like to know, though.
> > There
> > actually is a word for "inside" at least--I overlooked this fact--given
in
> > the Tzeltal grammar at
> > http://www.tzeltal.org/download/smith.txt
> > (in section 3.2.8). Does anyone know of any other such words?
No, it's a stupid mistake ... what I said what would have been a quote from
Trebor was actually a quote from Andreas Johansson, on a message by Trebor
*shame* However, this is 100%ly the right quote:

From: "Trebor Jung" <treborjung@...>
Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2004 9:19 PM
Subject: Re: Cases, again

[...]
>
> Too ambiguous? Language is ambiguous in general, and Tzeltal is ambiguous
in
> particular in this respect. It has only one preposition, ta, according to
> http://www.tzeltal.org/download/smith.txt (beware: a *huge* file!).
>
[...]

Well, that part of Andreas' answer you can read in the first msg of this
thread.

-- Carsten

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