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postpositional phrases

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 9:09 pm
by Beta Star
I'm having trouble finding examples of a certain kind of postpositional phrase in natlangs. I can find plenty of examples containing noun + postposition, which modifies a verb, such as Hungarian

a fiú a fa alatt ül the boy sits under the tree

but I cannot readily find an example (via googling) of noun + postposition modifying another noun, equivalent to the prepositional phrases in the English examples:

(1) the object in my hand is a screw
(2) the man under the bridge looks hungry

Are postpositional phrases used this way in natlangs? If so, does the postpositional phrase appear after or before the noun it modifies?

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 10:08 pm
by Beta Star
follow-up: I did find this tidbit about Basque: "A postpositional phrase cannot directly modify a NP (de Rijk 1988), but requires the adjectival suffix -ko: gazte-lurako bidea ‘the road to the castle’"

from a grammar of Cavineña: "Postpositional phrases cannot function at the NP level, i.e., cannot directly modify the head noun of an NP, unless through the use of relativization."

In Hindi "Postpositional phrases cannot modify a noun either, but they also cannot function as complements to the linker to serve as attributes." (If I'm understanding an online paper correctly)

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 10:51 pm
by Tengado
Not exactly the same, but similar. Chinese has relational nouns which come after the noun - in front of him is 在他的前面: 在-他的-前.面 locative preposition - his - front side. These relational nouns also need an adjectival/genitive particle to modify another noun - "the building in front" 前面的楼 前面-的-楼 front side -adj -building. POssibly postposiitons developed from such nouns, thus requiring the adjectival structure? Or prepositons and postpositions both developed from nouns, but differ in their reanalysis as being very different to nouns?

Posted: Sat Jun 19, 2010 11:32 pm
by LinguistCat
In Japanese, many things that would be prepositional in English ("The cat under the table) is a relational noun phrase ("Teeburu no shita ni neko" or more literally "The table's bottom in/at cat".)

Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 1:03 am
by Kereb
vampyre_smiles wrote:In Japanese, many things that would be prepositional in English ("The cat under the table) is a relational noun phrase ("Teeburu no shita ni neko" or more literally "The table's bottom in/at cat".)
The phrase ending in ni can't modify the noun directly. You'd say teeburu no shita no neko or teeburu no shita ni iru neko.

Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 1:07 am
by LinguistCat
Berek wrote:
vampyre_smiles wrote:In Japanese, many things that would be prepositional in English ("The cat under the table) is a relational noun phrase ("Teeburu no shita ni neko" or more literally "The table's bottom in/at cat".)
The phrase ending in ni can't modify the noun directly. You'd say teeburu no shita no neko or teeburu no shita ni iru neko.
Thanks for the correction. I must be getting rusty.

Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 8:18 am
by Beta Star
Well, I wonder if I've stumbled upon a language universal. Maybe postpositional phrases can't modify nouns directly in natlangs, unlike prepositional phrases. It seems like allowing such a thing would be harmless but maybe it causes unpleasant entanglements or "just doesn't feel right" in complex sentences. I will experiment with it when I get my SOV conlang up and running.

Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 9:16 am
by Jetboy
Well, depending on whether or not you consider 'ago', 'hence', etc., as postpositions, English uses postpositions adverbially.

Posted: Sun Jun 20, 2010 10:21 am
by Miekko
Finnish sort of permits it, but it's difficult to tell whether they're adverbials or attributes in the examples I've been thinking of.