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

From:Alex Fink <000024@...>
Date:Friday, August 15, 2008, 0:31
On Thu, 14 Aug 2008 20:17:26 -0400, Eldin Raigmore
<eldin_raigmore@...> wrote:

>Are there any natlangs in which the class of adpositions is an open class? >(word-coinage or "rhematopoiesis" or "lexicogeny" of adpositions is still going >on, or borrowing of adpositions is still possible?) Are there any natlangs in >which adpositions are a large word-class?
Language Log had a bit on this quite recently in English, http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=275 et seq., on the implications of the facts that the verb "head" takes prepositional complements and the existence of people who find the new construction "heading Dagenham" grammatical. I also recall some posts from the classic series on the subject of "bush", with similar thrust, that in addition provided some supporting arguments for the CGEL analysis of these things as prepositions. (But I'm too lazy to google for it at the mo and filter through all the irrelevant hits on "bush" on the Log which are Dubya.) Alex