<div dir="ltr">Dear Christian,<div><br></div><div>in East Caucasian linguistics, where the meaning of spatial domain (on top of, inside) and motion (to, from, static) are expressed separately (though essive = static is usually unmarked) there is a long standing tradition to use capitalized latinate labels like Sub,Super, Post, In, Inter, Apud. - see Aleksandr Kibrik's <i>Nominal inflection galore: Daghestanian, with side glances at Europe and the world</i> // F.Plank (ed.). Noun phrase structure in the languages of Europe. De Gruyter. Berlin - New York, 2003. С. 37-112. - who explains this terminology, a good overview in English, as well as many other publications on East Caucasian.</div><div><br></div><div>I may provide more references in a personal email, if needed.</div><div><br></div><div>Michael</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">ср, 24 мар. 2021 г. в 17:31, Christian Lehmann <<a href="mailto:christian.lehmann@uni-erfurt.de">christian.lehmann@uni-erfurt.de</a>>:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">
<div>
<p>May I briefly interrupt the epistemological debate with a much
simpler question?</p>
<p>Several languages (notably, many Uralic languages) display a rich
local case system which neatly distinguishes between spatial
regions ('top', 'bottom', 'interior', exterior' etc.) and local
relations ('rest, motion to/from/through') to these or to the
object irrespective of its regions. The descriptive tradition for
such languages has responded to the structure of such paradigms by
reflecting it in a set of Latinate terms of the following
structure:</p>
adessive, allative, ablative<br>
inessive, illative, elative<br>
superessive, superlative (never mind the homonymy of this term),
delative<br>
<p>and many others. It does not matter at the moment to what extent
the case systems or the terminology are systematic and complete.
My concern is the distinction between rest (essive) and motion
(lative). Such a distinction is made in local cases or adpositions
of many languages. Contrasting with these, there are (possibly
equally many or more) languages whose adpositions only code the
spatial region, leaving the local relation to other components of
the clause. My question is how we can apply the terminological
pattern mentioned to these languages in order to get appropriate
grammatical category labels and abbreviations for the
morphological glosses of such adpositions. Here are some such
concepts and corresponding ponderous terms:<br>
</p>
non-specific: essive/lative<br>
top: superessive/-lative<br>
bottom: subessive/-lative<br>
interior: inessive/illative<br>
proximity: adessive/allative<br>
vicinity: apudessive/-lative<br>
and others.
<p>These terms have at least two disadvantages:</p>
<ul>
<li>They are long-winded.</li>
<li>The 'lative' member of each pair has commonly been applied
specifically to the direction to(wards) the reference object,
not generally to a motion relation.<br>
</li>
</ul>
<p>The first pair in the list is often simply called 'locative'. But
what about the others? Are there shorter, but equally systematic
terms in use anywhere?</p>
<p>Some may prefer just using English words like 'on', 'under',
'beside' to designate and gloss such adpositions or cases. Such a
solution is fraught with problems, too:</p>
<ol>
<li>These are no technical terms in a grammatical description, so
they don't imply a grammatical category and paradigm. (We can
say such things as 'it is marked by the ablative', but hardly
'it is marked by "from"'.)<br>
</li>
<li>Some of these English prepositions (being SAE prepositions) do
imply a local relation, like English <i>in</i> is incompatible
with ablative directionality (must be <i>out of</i>).</li>
<li>Yet other spatial regions like vicinity are not matched by an
English preposition (<i>by</i> is too ambiguous, other
candidates are too specific).<br>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Ignoring problems 2 and 3 would therefore evoke mistaken ideas in
the recipient of the description.</p>
<p>Grateful for any useful hints,<br>
</p>
<p>Christian<br>
</p>
<div>-- <br>
<p style="font-size:90%">Prof. em. Dr. Christian Lehmann<br>
Rudolfstr. 4<br>
99092 Erfurt<br>
<span style="font-variant:small-caps">Deutschland</span></p>
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