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Re: Ordering of case names

From:Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>
Date:Monday, September 16, 2002, 19:56
Yitzik wrote:
>On Thu, 12 Sep 2002 10:58:19 +0000 Andreas Johansson scripsit: > > > Yitzik wrote: > >> P. - Predlozhnyj - L. (or lit. "Prepositional", since in Ru. and Uk. > >> it is used only in combination with certain prepositions). > > > > Funny. In Yargish the locative is only used with postpositions ... > > perhaps I > > should be renaming it "postpositional"? Then perhaps not, since it > > with most > > postpositions have a decidedly locative meaning. Eg _u-diriz-zata_ > > with the > > locative of _dir_ "forest" means "in the forest", _u-diru-zata_ with > > the > > dative means "into the forest" and _u-dira-zata_ with ergative means > > "out of > > the forest". Is the situation in Russian and Ukrainian similar? > >To some extent yes. In Uk. it is still called "locative", but Ru. grammar >uses term "prepositional", because a couple of prepositions demand this >case >having no particular locative meaning. E.g., preposition |o| "about" >demands >P., so |o syne| means "about (the) son", where |syne| is a P. from |syn| >"son". In Uk. only prepositions with locative meaning are used with L.: |u >khati| "in (the) house", |na stini| "on the wall", |pry dorozi| "by the >road".
Then the Yargish use most resembles the Russian, since in some combinations the Locative don't convey any proper locative meaning. Eg _u-stuny u-yargiz-ung_ "the warrior's sword". While this possessive construction may historically originally have denoted that the thing possessed is found at the possessor, in "contemporary" Yargish it's simply a grammaticalized way of expresssing possession, and the postpostition _ung_ don't occur with any other case. The postposition _uz_ "by" (in the instrumental sense) also only combines with the Locative. But I don't see much point in changing the name, really. Illogical case-names are part of what makes linguistics fun! Andreas _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com