Re: Derived adpositions (< Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class)

But whence "fore"?  It obviously is a morpheme meaning "front", as in
"forward" ("toward the fore"), "before", fore- ("forearm"), which is
still semiproductive in the meaning "pre-", but as a word on its own
it really has currency only in the nautical sense of "front (of a
ship)".  I assume it originally meant "front" more generally.  Was it
ever a body part word?




On 8/15/08, Herman Miller <hmiller@...> wrote:
> Jim Henry wrote:
>> On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 8:17 PM, Eldin Raigmore
>> <eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:
>>> Are there, in any natlangs, any synchronously-derived adpositions?
>>
>> "[I]n English, the phrase 'on top of' is a complex preposition
>> consisting partly of the noun 'top'.  For many languages
>> prepositions come from body-part nouns, e.g. 'back'
>> for 'behind', 'face' for 'in front', 'head' for 'up', and 'foot'
>> for 'down' (Casad 1982, Heine and Re 1984)....."
>
> For that matter, "behind" itself ("hind" meaning "rear"), "before"
> (still occasionally used in the meaning "in front of"), and "beside"
> (from "side"). Also, "atop" meaning "on top of".
>
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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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