Re: Semantic field for local cases
| From: | Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Saturday, May 27, 2006, 15:14 |
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Hallo!
On Sat, 27 May 2006 15:34:16 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson wrote:
> Dear list,
>
> I found an old lecture handout showing a tabularized
> semantic field for prepositions. I have had the
> memory of this lying disquietly at the back of my mind for
> years. Be warned that I translated the prepositions
> from Swedish, which AFAIK amounts to a retranslation,
> which may or may not have been entirely successful.
>
>
> INCLUSION CONTACT PROXIMITY
>
> LOCATIVE in----------on----------at
> | | |
> | | |
> SEPARATIVE out-of------off---------from
> | | |
> | | |
> TRANSLATIVE through-----over--------along
> | | |
> | | |
> INGRESSIVE towards-----against-----to
> (for)
>
> Obviously this is not only useful for designing
> a preposition system, but in particular for designing
> a system of local cases using only six morphemes,
> the slots in the Locative row and the Proximity
> column using case endings consisting of a single
> morpheme, and the other slots using a combination
> of two morphemes!
>
> As some of you probably see this is pretty similar
> to the Finnish system of local cases, although Finnish
> conflates the Contact column with the other two
> in an unsystematic manner, and doesn't have an
> organized Translative row.
>
> Now my question is whether there are any (other) languages,
> con or nat, that have such a 'neatly' organized case system
> in part or whole, or even with more distinctions?
Yes. Daghestanian languages, such as Lak or Tabasaran, have such case
systems, and very much so! There is one set of suffixes meaning 'at',
'on', 'in', 'above', 'below' etc.; to each of these, a suffix meaning
'from' or another suffix meaning 'to', can be added, in some languages
also something like 'through' or 'by'.
This is also the truth behind the often-cited "48 cases of Tabasaran".
... brought to you by the Weeping Elf
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