Re: a case-free language?

From:    Garth Wallace <gwalla@...>
> > > This system satisfies the criteria you suggested for -i- and -u- to be
> > > adpositions, but they're not what I would think of as adpositions, since
> > > they're completely merged with the noun and can't be separated.
> >
> > If it's phonologically merged with the word but governs a phrase,
> > wouldn't it be a clitic?
The class of "clitics" and the class of "postpositions" are not
mutually exclusive.

Chris Bates wrote:
> Possibly... *shrugs* But the adposition not being merged with one of the
> words of the phrase wasn't one of the stated conditions... so if these
> don't classify as adpositions (you could define adpositions and clitics
> so there's some overlap I suppose), then it would seem there are at
> least two conditions for something to be an adposition:
>
> (i) Does not phonologically merge with any word of the phrase
As I was trying to show in my discussion about Georgian, something
*can* indeed phonologically merge with a word, but it must not
*morphologically* merge with it.

> (ii) In coordinate clauses, one instance governs all the noun phrases
> rather than being repeated for each noun phrase.
It's not that there *must* be one instance; only that there *can* be
one instance.  English, which undoubtedly has many prepositions, can
coordinate two distinct PPs:

  (a) for men and for women

But it can also coordinate two NPs under one PP:

  (b) for men and women

With a true case in a case-marked language, this latter option is
unavailable.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637

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