Re: THEORY: Xpositions in Ypositional languages {X,Y}={pre,post}

---In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
>Quoting Eldin Raigmore <eldin_raigmore@...>:
>>(As near as I can tell nobody thinks there are suprapositions or
>>transpositions.)
>A supraposition, I suppose, is a suprasegmental feature that serves
>the function of  an adposition,
Right, basically a "suprafixed adposition".

>but what is a transposition?
Some people sometimes refer to what happens in the Triconsonantal Root
Systems of some Afro-Asiatic languages as "transfixes".  By parallel with
prepositions, postpositions, inpositions, and circumpositions, I made up the
terms "supraposition" and "transposition" to mean a "a suprafixed adposition"
and "a transfixed adposition".

>I was going to say I could easily imagine a supraposition, supposing
>my supposition as to meaning be correct, coming into existence from
>a postposition first becoming asyllabic and then turning into a
>toneme - imagine a development like _aba su_ > _abas_ > _abà_ where
>_aba_ is some noun and the grave is low tone - but then it struck me
>if we discover such a beast in the wild, we would likely call it a
>case-form, not an adpositional phrase, at least by the third stage.
Dryer's paper says that many of the things he calls "adpositions" for purposes
of this paper are sometimes called other things (e.g. "relators") by some other
authors.  He goes on to say that adpositions and case-affixes are included in a
somewhat larger class he calls "case markers".  So, yes, for purposes of this
paper, I suppose a suprafixed case-marker would count as a supraposition
(though nobody actually uses that term); a transfixed case-marker would
count as a transposition (though aren't the Semitic triconsonantal roots mostly
verb-roots? so natlangishly attested transfixes are mostly in conjugations
rather than in declensions?); an infixed case-marker counts as an inposition; a
circumfixed case-marker counts as a circumpositions; etc.

>I guess I should go read the paper you linked to and find out
>exactly why
>Dyer
"Dryer", n'est-ce pas?

>thinks the Tagalog inpositions are just that
I've read it.  I'm not confident I've understood it, but I think I could if I tried
hard enough long enough often enough.

>and not case inflections.
I think he might think some of them are inpositions _as_well_as_ case-
inflections, rather than _instead_of_ case-inflections.

>Perhaps the same distinction, if there be one, is applicable to
>suprasegmentals ...
I'd be interested in any natlang examples anyone comes up with.

I'd also be interested if anyone feels like putting any of them in a conlang; or
knows of a conlang where anyone has already done so.

>Andreas
Thanks for writing!

-----
eldin

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