Re: Derived adpositions (< Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class)
| From: | Herman Miller <hmiller@...> |
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| Date: | Saturday, August 16, 2008, 1:53 |
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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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