Re: Letf / Right, was Re: Count and mass nouns

Quoting Doug Dee <AmateurLinguist@...>:

> In a message dated 1/19/2004 2:59:52 AM Eastern Standard Time,
> herodote92@YAHOO.COM writes:
>
> >By the way, I wonder if any natlang has markers for left / right
> distinction.
>
> In _Explaining Language Universals_, John A. Hawkins says "Speakers
> regularly
> have occasion to refer deitically to objects on their left as opposed to
> their right side, and vice versa.  Yet deitic systems across languages are
> not
> organized on this basis."
>
> Now that I think of it, that is perhaps surprising.  Many deitic systems
> have
> a near/far distinction, and left/right would not seem any less useful at
> first glance.
ObMyConlang: Yargish has postpositions for "left of" and "right of" - _-aj_
and _-ich_, namely. So you get things like _u-yuran_ "the troll", _u-yuraniz-
ich_ "to the right of the troll", _u-yurana-aj_ "from left of the troll". FYI,
_-iz_ is the locative ending (which only occurs with a following cliticized
postposition) and _-a_ is the erg/abl one.

                                                          Andreas

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