> This is about prepositions in postpositional languages, and postpositions
> in prepositional languages.
>
> Some of my questions were apparently answered in a paper by Dryer,
>
http://linguistics.buffalo.edu/people/faculty/dryer/dryer/DryerWalsAdpNoMap
>.pd f
>
> On Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:18:50 -0400, Eldin Raigmore
>
> <eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:
> >Is it true that in nearly every natural language, either nearly every
> > adposition is a Preposition and the language is clearly Prepositional, or
> > else nearly every adposition is a Postposition and the language is
> > clearly Postpositional?
>
> About 48% of Dryer's sample are postpositional;
> about 43% are prepositional.
>
> >Are there any natlangs that are neither clearly Prepositional nor
> >Postpositional?
>
> About 5% of Dryer's sample have more than one type of adposition with no
> dominant type.
>
> >Are there any natlangs in which Prepositions and Postpositions taken
> > together don't dominate the adpositions?
>
> About 3% of Dryer's sample have no adpositions;
> and about 1% are inpositional.
>
> >Possible example; in Tagalog there seem to be a whole lot of Impositions.
>
> Apparently, the correct word is "inposition" rather than "imposition".
> Dryer explains why he calls these infixes "adpositions".
> (He also talks about adpositions which can appear both as prepositions and
> as postpositions in the same language. I gather that's one meaning
> of "circumposition"; the other meaning appears to be a preposition-
> postposition pair which must be used together.)
>
> >In mostly-Prepositional languages that have a few Postpositions (like
> > English's postposition "ago"), I have heard that there are a few semantic
> > groups that these exceptional Postpositions tend to belong to, even
> > cross-linguistically. That is, if a Prepositional language has a few
> > Postpositions, and also has an adposition meaning "ago", then chances are
> > that adposition is one of those Postpositions.
> >
> >Does anyone know what those semantic groups are?
>
> This question is still unanswered.
> Also, does anyone know where that article or a similar article is? Or who
> the author(s) (probably) is(are)?
>
> >In mostly-Postpositional languages that have a few Prepositions, are there
> > a few semantic groups that these exceptional Prepositions tend to belong
> > to, even cross-linguistically?
>
> Dryer's article seems to suggest "Yes". But I may be reading more into it
> than is there. Does anyone know for sure?
>
> >If so are these the same semantic groups as for the opposite situation
> >(above)?
> >
> >If not, what are these semantic groups?
>
> Dryer's article seems to suggest the two groups may not be the same.
>
> If two postpositional languages both have some prepositions, it seems, then
> something with the meaning "without" is likely to be one such preposition,
> IIUC.
>
> But if two prepositional languages both have some postpositions, it seems
> something with the meaning "ago" is likely to be one such postposition.
>
> Again, perhaps I am reading into that article more than is there.
> Does anyone know for sure?
>
> >In either case, do the semantic groups occur in a hierarchy?
>
> This question is still unanswered. Some people have told me they guess
> "yes", but I don't remember seeing anything about this in any professional
> paper.
>
> >Are there any semantic groups of adpositions that tend
> > cross-linguistically to be Impositions or Circumpositions or
> > Suprapositions or "Transpositions" (if there are such things)?
>
> I should revise this question.
>
> Are there any semantic groups of adpositions that tend cross-linguistically
> to be Inpositions or Circumpositions?
>
> (As near as I can tell nobody thinks there are suprapositions or
> transpositions.)