postpositions

[Koontz John E]

On Fri, 2 Jan 2004, Hu Matthews wrote:
> Another way of looking at it is to call it a partitive construction. awé
> áake (the surface of the earth) plus the postposition  n. However, if áake
> is a noun and n is the postposition, then we need to explain why there are
> very few nouns that can be suffixed with a postposition.

I don't really have an explanation for this, but it's true right across
Siouan, as far as I know.  For example, in Omaha-Ponca =di 'in' can be
added to some nouns, sometimes with an additional inserted theme vowel,
e.g., in ttia=di 'in (the) house' (or maybe it's tti=adi or just ttiadi).
But in many cases it seems necessary to have an intervening article or
demonstrative.  The common more or less empty-seeming supporting element
is e.  I have the impression that things are rather similar in Dakotan, at
least with the older (?), more initimately connecting postpositions, like
=l.