Re: Head-marking languages and adpositions?

At 3:29 PM -0400 9/16/02, Amanda Babcock wrote:
>I'm very curious about how head-marking languages work.  I get the part
>about marking the possessed object instead of the possessor, but what
>about other types of heads?  Are there ever adpositions in these languages,
>and if so, do the adpositions take marking?  (I'm thinking here of the
>opposite of languages where the objects of adpositions are marked for case.)
>If so, how?
I think that in head-marking languages adpositions are not taken to
be heads but are modificational material appended to a head noun or
verb (in the guise of directional affixes). Verbs are the most
elaborated heads and can be modified with pronominal arguments,
tense/aspect, modality, mirativity, voice, etc.

>If anybody has a grammar up of a comprehensively head-marking conlang,
>pointers to that would be appreciated, too :)
Miapimoquitch is pretty rigorously head-marking. Tepa was as well,
but not to the same degree. Some Tepa materials can be found on
LangMaker.com. Comprehensive Miapimoquitch documentation is awaiting
the proverbial Some Free Time. (I still need to write it; never mind
about finding a web host and HTMLizing.)

The Salish languages also lean very heavily towards the head-marking
end of the scale. You should be able to find stuff fairly easily on
Salish.

Dirk
--
Dirk Elzinga                                             Dirk_Elzinga@byu.edu

"No theory can exclude everything that is wrong, poor, or even detestable, or
include everything that is right, good, or beautiful."    - Arnold Schoenberg

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