Re: Prepositional phrases

Làtae Matthew Pearson:

> >   Out of the forest: my     thaure
> >                      in-ABL forest-OBL
> Itaul lokau -- "The(ABL) forest-ABL"
> Itaul himau loka -- "The(ABL) interior-ABL forest"
> Ite' ysmai loka -- "The(DAT) exterior-DAT forest"
>
> (There's probably a slight difference in meaning between these
> last two expressions, but I haven't worked out what it is yet...)
Perhaps it might be a difference of focus. _Itaul himau
loka_ could focus on being / having been inside the forest,
and _ite' ysmai loka_ might focus on the fact that you
finally get out of the forest.

On a more general comment on the prepositional system
of Tokana, I must say it's absolutely brilliant. It's
so neat and pure. And seems to depend a great deal on
context. Very natlangy! I like it. :)

> > Does anyone know anything about natlangs that use locative
> > nouns? Or have ideas about how to simplify my system?
> Locative nouns are common among Mayan languages (e.g., Tzotzil),
> and are also found in Oto-Manguean languages (e.g., Mixtec,
> Zapotec).
A friend of mine claims that there are locative nouns
in some Bantu languages. Most people seem to classify
these as a class of their own, but I think my friend
has a point. (His name is Niklas Edenmyr and his BA-thesis
is called _Locative nouns in four Bantu languages_. I
doubt you'll find it, but you might want to look at the
nouns in class 16, 17, 18 and 23 in LuGanda, KiSwahili,
IsiZulu and TshiVenda.)

||| daniel

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