[Lingtyp] ‘Ostensive’ use of a goal case

[zemp marius]

Dear colleagues,



the two Written Tibetan examples (from Beyer 1992: 384) presented below
illustrate the construction I’m interested in:



*khyi che-ba-la*

dog big-nlzr-??

‘That dog is really big!/How big that dog is!’



*gnam sdug-pa-la*

sky beautiful-nlzr-??

‘The sky is so beautiful!/What a beautiful sky!’



According to Beyer (ibid.), this construction “consists of a nominalized
proposition followed by the locus particle -*la*, yielding an extreme
degree of some variable factor, which is expressed by the nominalized verb,
usually stative.”



While I think an adequate label for the function served by -*la* in these
examples might be ‘ostensive’, my hypothesis is that this -*la* derives
from the goal case -*la* of the same language. Unfortunately, I am unable
to back this with any cross-linguistic parallels – Have any of you come
across a goal case (or perhaps also a postposition meaning ‘to’) being used
in a similar way in any of the languages you work with?



Thanks in advance for your help!



Best,

Marius
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