case/adposition term

G.Lazard gilzard at WANADOO.FR
Thu Jul 13 07:53:29 UTC 2006


Dear Martin, 

    I think "case relator", proposed by Christian Lehmann, is a good choice
for naming the units (case markers and adpositions).
    For the whole set of case relators of a language, an overalI
denomination may be useful. I personally have used "case apparatus" (in
French "appareil casuel").

    Best wishes.

Gilbert Lazard
49 av. de l'Observatoire
F-75014 Paris


-- 



> De : Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at EVA.MPG.DE>
> Répondre à : Martin Haspelmath <haspelmath at EVA.MPG.DE>
> Date : Tue, 11 Jul 2006 11:53:22 +0200
> À : LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG
> Objet : case/adposition term
> 
> I have a terminological question:
> 
> Cases and adpositions have many properties in common, so it is useful to
> have a term for a broader concept that includes both. I know of three
> proposals for such a broader concept:
> 
> (1) relator
> (2) flag
> (3) case
> 
> I'm interested in places in the literature where one of these three
> choices has been explicitly adopted, and of course in alternatives that
> I don't know about.
> 
> I have used (2) ("flag") myself in recent work (a 2005 paper published
> in "Linguistic Discovery", see
> http://linguistic-discovery.dartmouth.edu/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Journals.woa/xmlp
> age/1/issue), 
> but I know that I didn't invent it. I think I have heard it in the
> context of Relational Grammar.
> 
> (3) is clearly the most widespread -- people routinely refer to
> adpositional markers as "case markers", but it has the disadvantage of
> introducing a polysemy of the term "case" (unless one abandons the old
> case concept and only talks about "analytic cases" and "synthetic
> cases"). Still, I'm interested in places in the literature where this
> terminological choice is explicitly adopted.
> 
> Thanks,
> Martin
> 
> -- 
> Martin Haspelmath (haspelmath at eva.mpg.de)
> Max-Planck-Institut fuer evolutionaere Anthropologie, Deutscher Platz 6 
> D-04103 Leipzig  
> Tel. (MPI) +49-341-3550 307, (priv.) +49-341-980 1616
> 



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