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<p>Posted by <b><!--poster-->ranskaldan</b>
on <!--date-->10:10 7/24/02
<p>In reply to: <a href="469.html">Language evolution and the icëlani</a> posted by Hans-Werner Hatting</b> on 14:14 7/19/02
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<p>
Mark responds:
<blockquote>
I knew some exotic language would turn out to have
this feature. :)
</blockquote>
<p>Well, here's another exotic language that has some
form of this feature.
<p>In Chinese, both prepositions and postpositions are
used. Which one is used depends highly on what kind of
adpositional phrase is involved. There are some words
that double as both.
<p>For example, in an adpositional phrase before the
verb, zai4 ("at")is used as a sort of "generic
preposition" and a specific postposition is added at
the end. :
<p>Ta1 zai4-tu2shu1guan3-wai4 kan4-shu1.
<br>He at-library-outside read-book.
<br>He's reading outside the library.
<p>The preposition "zai4" can also be changed for finer
distinctions:
<br>Ta1 wang3-tu2shu1guan3-wai4 zou3-qu4.
<br>He towards-library-outside walk-go.
<br>He's going (walking) towards the outside of the
library.
<br>(that's akin to using an accusative behind a
preposition in Esperanto - or Verdurian, it seems)
<br>or:
<br>Ta1 cong2-tu2shu1guan3-wai4 zou3-lai2.
<br>He from-library-outside walk-come.
<br>He's coming (walking) from outside the library.
<p>(if the double-verbs "walk-go" and "walk-come" look
puzzling, it's because -qu4 and -lai2 in the sense of
"come" and "go" are affixed to verbs to indicate
whether it's "coming" or "going". That's how Chinese
distinguishes "take" na2qu4 and "bring" na2lai2.)
<p>So far the adpositional phrases all come before the
verb. Sometimes adpositional phrases come after the
verb. In this case, all those things that I said about
pre-post pairs don't apply. Instead it seems to be a
phrasal-verb-like pattern.
<p>For example:
<br>Ta1 zou2-shang-le lou2ti1.
<br>He walk-up-perf. stairs.
<br>He walked up the stairs.
<p>the "shang", which looks like a preposition-adverb
hybrid here, can be a postposition as well if used
before the verb: (so that's the double role adposition
so sought after)
<p>Ta1men zai4-shu4-shang wanr2-zhe ne.
<br>They at-tree-ontop play-contin emotmark.
<br>They're playing on the tree!
<br>(note: zhe is not normally an aspect marker as above,
but here's it's used for emphasis.)
<p>In general, adverbial phrases that express
"conditions" or "descriptions" of the verb come
before, while those expressing "results" of the verb
come after.
<p>That brings me to a correction i've gotta make: in the
Kit (specifically, the part about "Is your language
inflecting, agglutinating, or isolating?"), you gave
"I was eating yesterday" in Chinese as "Wo chifan
zuotian". The "zuotian" (yesterday) should be before
the verb.
<p>Personally, however, I'd prefer a few aspect particles
in even the more correct "wo zuotian chifan", which
seems very very stilted and unnatural. "wo zuotian
jiu4 chi-guo4-fan le" (I yesterday already
eat-experienceaspect indicmark) sounds a lot better.
<p>as you said later on in the paragraph, even Chinese
can't resist squeezing in a few inflections here and there.
<hr><i>Mark responds:
<p>Thanks for the very clear explanation! I really want to get back to
learning Mandarin... the syntax has all kinds of interesting features,
such as these circumpositions, as we might call them.
<p>And thanks for the Kit correction. I'll have to rewrite that section...
too bad Chinese doesn't quite work the way I want it to there. :)
I've heard, though, that languages always mark either tense or aspect
or both. (Another universal for Eteodäole to violate!)
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<b>ranskaldan</b>
<i>10:10 7/24/02</i>
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