spatial/locational paradigms

[BARudes at aol.com]

Jess,

The situation with regard to locatives in Northern Iroquoian languages is
that these languages have a very limited set of locatives that, with but one
exception, all appear to be derivatives of stative verbs.  (The cue in
Tuscarora that the suffix is nominal or verbal in nature is the shift (for
most nouns) from the simple noun prefix u- to the prefix ka-.) I will
illustrate with forms from Tuscarora (an aposthrophe means the following
vowel has high pitch accent, a grave means the following vowel has low pitch
accent; a following N means the vowel is nasal; ? is used for glottal stop; :
is used for vowel length; c is used for the palatal affricate c-hachek):

un'eNhseh 'house' (root -neNhs-, from Proto-Northern Iroquoian *-noNhs-
'house')

uneNhs'ehkye ~ uneNhs'a?kye ~ uneNhs'eN?kye 'at, on (the) house' (noun suffix
-kye 'external locative' from Proto-Northern Iroquoian (PNI) *-ke 'external
locative'; there is some evidence that the alternation among the simple noun
suffixes -eh, -a?, -eN? resulted in slightly different meanings among these
forms)

kan'eNhsakeNw ~ kan'eNhsakeN: 'in, under (the) house' (verbal suffix -akeNw
'internal locative' from PNI *-akoNw 'internal locative', related to the PNI
stative verb *-akoNw- 'lay within, lay inside') (the Lake Iroquoian
languages, i.e., Northern Iroquoian minus Tuscarora and Nottoway, have
another locative suffix similar to this one with initial /o/ rather than /a/
and a somewhat different meaning that I do not remember at the moment.)

kan'eNhsakwt ~ kan'eNhsa:kt 'next to, beside (the) house' (verbal suffix
-a:kt- 'lateral locative' from PNI *-a:kt- 'lateral locativel', related to
the PNI stative verb *-a:kt- 'be next to, be alongside'

kan'eNhsa'ni 'at the edge of, beyond, on the other side of (the) house'
(verbal suffix -a'ni 'peripheral' from PNI *-ati 'peripheral locative' -
further root connection uncertain)

The verbal cislocative (t-) prefix can also be used with some nouns,
typically deverbal nouns, to express location, as in tk`ineN 'at (the) creek'
from k`ineN 'creek'.

I do not know enough about Southern Iroquoian (Cherokee) to comment on the
locative system except to say that it seems as simple or simpler than the
Northern Iroquoian system.

Although you did not ask, I might mention that the Catawba locative system
works as follows.  There are a series of locative prefixes that may occur on
verbs, and that include aki:# 'near', capa# 'away', cik# 'forward', duk#
'back', ha# 'here', had# 'forward', ha:p# 'up', hi:cu# 'supine', hid# 'over
yonder', huk# 'down', ka# 'upright', kepa# (Esaw kep#) 'under',  ma# 'there',
su#     'in',  suk# 'on top',  tak# 'in front', taN# (Esaw teraN#) 'out',
yap# 'everywhere', yita# (Esaw yata#) 'across'.  Some of these (e.g., ma,
suk) may also occur as postclitics on nouns.  The others may occur as
independent locative particles with a final vowel (typically -i: or -u:)
attached (e.g., ha:p'i: 'up').

Blair