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

Douglas Koller wrote:
> From: R A Brown <ray@...>
>
>>AFAIK understand by the term. Trask [1993] defines 'circumposition' thus:
>>"A combination of a preposition and a postposition functioning together
>>as a single adposition, such as Mandarin _dao4...li3 'into', illustrated
>>in _Wo3 ba3 shui3 dao4 dao2 guon4 li3 I Acc water pour to can in 'I pour
>>water into the can.'"
>>[Actually Trask gives the Mandarin with the Pinyin diacritics to show
>>tone, and not the numbers which I've given above]
>
>
> Wo3 ba3 shui3 dao4 dao4 guan4 li3,  idn't it [sic]?
Yes, I did make a mistake with the second _dao_; Trask does give them
both as daò, i.e. dao4. But he does write the penultimate word as
_guòn_, i.e. guon4. So if it should be _guan4_ that mistake is his or
his publisher's.
--------------------------------------------------------

Andreas Johansson wrote:
 > Quoting R A Brown <ray@...>:
 >
 >
 >>Andreas Johansson wrote:
[snip]
 >>>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.
 >>
 >>I think by the second stage we surely have a suffix and, presumably,
 >>some sort of case ending; so even at that stage it has IMO ceased to be
 >>an adposition.
 >
 >
 > That would depend on what we think of clitics, and whether the marker
at the
 > second stage can attach to a non-noun word at the end of a nominal
phrase.

Ah yes - clitics: "An item which exhibits behaviour intermediate between
that of a word and that of an affix." [Trask]. Clitics add a certain
fuzziness to the argument  :)

Ill amend my comment above: "I think by the second stage we surely have
a suffix or, at least, a clitic; so even at that stage it has IMO ceased
to be an adposition."

The point is that I do not think a case has been made for a separate
category of 'supraposition'.

 > By no coincidence, the marker at the 2nd stage takes the same form -
i.e. /-s/ -
 > as the Swedish genitival marker, which is commonly refered to as case
ending,
 > but isn't necessarily appended to the relevant noun: it is attached
to the last
 > word of the nominal phrase, which might be almost anything.

Exactly like the English possessive ending _'s_. When I was at school
long years ago I was taught that it marked the 'possessive case' in
English. But now all linguists AFAIK regard it as an enclitic (i.e.
postposited clitic).

Among the more
 > exotic possibilities is to a stranded preposition of an embedded relative
 > clause, e.g. _killen jag åt lunch meds bil_ "the car of the guy I ate
lunch with",

"The guy I ate lunch with's car"  :)
-------------------------------

David J. Peterson wrote:
 > Ray wrote:
 > <<
 > Yes, personally I doubt such an animal exists. Suprafixes/ superfixes
 > are attested in natlangs. But it seems to me that distinguishing
 > 'suprapositions' from suprafixes would require some very pedantic slight
 > of hand.
 >  >>
 >
 > If it were to exist at all, I wager it'd have to work something like
 > this (unmarked tones are low; /1/ = high tone):
 >
 > mako = bucket
 >
 > mako ala = green bucket
 >
 > makona = the bucket
 >
 > makona ala = the green bucket
 >
 > mako1 = in a bucket
 >
 > makona1 = in the bucket
 >
 > mako ala1 = in a green bucket
 >
 > makona ala1 = in the green bucket
 >
 > This, however (I bet), would get called a tonal clitic.  And once
 > you allow for clitics, things become dreadfully confusing.

Yes indeed - the dividing line between adposition and clitic is IMO
fuzzy, and the dividing line between clitic and affix is equally fuzzy.

But as far as can see, in the example above there is no obvious reason
why it should not be called a 'suprafix' (or, if you prefer,
'superfix'). The example Trask gives of superfix is from Ngbaka where
differences in tone indicate four major tense/aspect forms of verbs. The
tone marks Trask uses are the same as those used in Pinyin, so for the
sake of convenience I'll use the 1, 2, 3 & 4 of "ASCII Pinyin" -
Form 1    Form 2   Form 3   Form 4
wa4       wa1      wa3      wa2      = clean
gbo4to4   gbo1to1  gbo4to2  gbo2to2  = pull

BTW Trask adds in small print:
"NOTE: the form 'suprafix' is preferred by those linguists with a
knowledge of Latin, but, they being the minority these days, 'superfix'
is far more frequent in use."          ;)

But my point is that adding a supposed 'suprapositional' category in
additional to 'suprafix' and, possibly, tonal clitic, is multiplying
entities beyond what is necessary. Indeed, from what I read in Dryer's
paper, I contend that the supposed category 'inposition' is not proven
and is thus also an example of creating an unnecessary entity.

--
Ray
==================================
ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
Entia non sunt multiplicanda
praeter necessitudinem.

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