inflected postpositions, stranded postpositions

[Richard Valovics]

Dear Steve,

Hungarian is one such language. Most postpositions,
namely those that take their complement in the
nominative, (and for that matter also most case
suffixes) are inflected for person and number. For this
reason, the complement can often be left out: alatt-am
(under me), alatt-ad (under you), alatt-a (under
him/her/it), alatt-unk (under us), etc.
Two remarks may be important. Hungarian postpositions
indeed derive from nouns. And when the complement is an
explicit noun, the postpositions are not inflected in
the modern standard language: Péter alatt (under Peter).
Though, in archaic style and possibly in dialects it is
possible: Péter-nek alatt-a. (-nek is the dative, which
case is often used to mark the possessor.)
I don't know of cases of stranded postpositions in
Hungarian.
Best regards
Richard



-----Oprindelig meddelelse-----
Fra: "Steve Marlett" <steve_marlett at SIL.ORG>
Til: "LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG"
<LINGTYP at LISTSERV.LINGUISTLIST.ORG>
Emne: inflected postpositions, stranded postpositions
Dato: 11-12-2003 13:14:47





Dear LingTypers:

I am looking for languages with postpositions that are
inflected for the person (and perhaps number) of their
complement. I suspect that there may be a terminological
matter to deal with (some have called them relational
nouns --- but that term goes in other directions as
well).

I am also looking for languages in which the
postposition may be "stranded" when the complement
occurs elsewhere in the sentence. 

If anyone has some suggested places to look for these, I
would appreciate it. (I will be presenting a paper about
this topic at the next SSILA meeting, relating to one
language in Mexico.)

--Steve
steve_marlett at sil.org




Richard Valovics
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DK-8200 Aarhus
Mobile: +45-61 67 02 53