Re: Language Sketch: Yargish Orkish

In a message dated Fri, 16 Aug 2002 19:47:47 +0000, and_yo@HOTMAIL.COM writes:

>
>
> Elliott Lash wrote:
> >trwier@UCHICAGO.EDU writes:
> >
> > > > POSTPOSITIONS
> > > >
> > > > Yargish has a largish number of postpositions, that combines with the
> > > > ergative, dative and locative cases. For spatial postpositions, the
> > > > ergative carries ablative meaning, the dative allative and the
> >locative,
> > > > um, locative meaning. Taking _dir_ "forest" and _-zata_ "in, inside",
> > > > we then have:
> > >
> > > It's a little unusual that the ergative would carry that oblique
> > > spatial meaing, but possible if phonological sound changes collapsed
> > > two originally distinct cases.  Is this the case in Yargish?
> >
> >
> >Why? In my book on case: CASE Second Edition by Barry J. Blake (a Cambridge
> >Textbook in Linguistics), he gives many examples showing ergative in
> >locative, ablative, instrumental and genitive functions. Of course,
> >ablative and instrumental seem to be the most common secondary functions of
> >the ergative, but, I dont see why it's "unusual" to be locative instead.
> >
>
> Actually, the Yargish ergative doubles up as an ablative when used with
> postpositions. The locative sense is appropriately enough handled by the
> locative case.

LOL.. (laughs at my own stupidity)..yes, that's actually what you said in the first
place..I must have misread something somewhere along the line. But like Thomas
wrote, it may be a bit unusual for the Ablative to be conflated with the
Ergative, whereas Locative~Ergative conflation is more normal. But, I also see
you've figured out a way to handle this...so..tallyho!

:-)

Elliott Lash