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Do you guys know of any language that has adpositions (and I mean true, particle-like adpositions, not verb-like things), and that allows placing the adpositional phrase before a noun modified by it?

That is, such a language would allow things such as, literally, word by word, "of hers a doll" (meaning 'a doll of hers'), "for my brother the gift" ('the gift for my brother'), "of doing this a way" ('a way of doing this').

Serafín wrote:Do you guys know of any language that has adpositions (and I mean true, particle-like adpositions, not verb-like things), and that allows placing the adpositional phrase before a noun modified by it?

That is, such a language would allow things such as, literally, word by word, "of hers a doll" (meaning 'a doll of hers'), "for my brother the gift" ('the gift for my brother'), "of doing this a way" ('a way of doing this').

Do you mean adpositions, or did you mean to say "prepositions"? I don't understand why Japanese wouldn't count, as it has the post-positive particle "no" which forms phrases that come before the modified noun (e.g. "a doll of hers" would be "[she] of doll"). It looks like certain other particles can also be compounded with "no" and then put before nouns in expressions like "tomodachi e no tegami" = "letter to a/the friend" or "chichi kara no denwa" = "a phone call from Father". Some Japanese particles may be related to verbs but I don't think all are (I found a paper that say the etymology of many of them is unclear, which suggests that synchronically they are fairly differentiated from verbs, and in fact it says "e" and "kara" are probably from nouns, which makes them more similar to relational nouns than verbs). That said, I barely know anything about Japanese so I may be wrong about that.

Serafín wrote:Do you guys know of any language that has adpositions (and I mean true, particle-like adpositions, not verb-like things), and that allows placing the adpositional phrase before a noun modified by it?

That is, such a language would allow things such as, literally, word by word, "of hers a doll" (meaning 'a doll of hers'), "for my brother the gift" ('the gift for my brother'), "of doing this a way" ('a way of doing this').

Bulgarian.

къщата на човека
house-DEF of man-DEF
man's house ~ the house of the man

на човека къщата
of man-DEF house-DEF
the house of the man ~ the man his house

The first usage is the default one, the second one is very emphatic and in many cases vulgar or borderline vulgar. There's rise of intonation and overall higher intonation when the possessed NP is spoken.

Basque is also a language with postpositions that are kind of derived from "relational nouns"; I haven't found a description of their use except as adverbs but if they can be used to modify nouns, I would guess they precede: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_gr ... tpositions

Sumelic wrote:Basque is also a language with postpositions that are kind of derived from "relational nouns"; I haven't found a description of their use except as adverbs but if they can be used to modify nouns, I would guess they precede: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_gr ... tpositions

When they precede nouns, it's with the adjectival suffix -ko suffixed.

Zju wrote:на човека къщата
of man-DEF house-DEF
the house of the man ~ the man his house

Some colloquial varieties of German have something similar:

dem Mann sein Haus
DEF.DAT.MASC:SG man 3SG:MASC.POSS.NEUT:SG house
to.the man his house

It also works with pronominal possessors, but a bit differently:

der ihre Puppe
DEF.DAT.FEM:SG 3SG:FEM.POSS.FEM:SG doll
to.her her doll

Both of these constructions use the dative case though, rather than a true preposition.

Serafín wrote:Do you guys know of any language that has adpositions (and I mean true, particle-like adpositions, not verb-like things), and that allows placing the adpositional phrase before a noun modified by it?

That is, such a language would allow things such as, literally, word by word, "of hers a doll" (meaning 'a doll of hers'), "for my brother the gift" ('the gift for my brother'), "of doing this a way" ('a way of doing this').

Assuming you meant adpositions and not postpositions, yes - Turkish is overwhelmingly left-stacking:

Ankara-'ya otobüs - the bus to Ankara

İstanbul-'un iç-in-de-ki cami-ler - mosques in Istanbul (Istanbul-GEN inside-PSS-LOC-ki mosque-PL)

sen-in için hediye - a present for you (2sg-GEN for gift)

In all of these cases the right-stacking alternative would be wrong.

Yng wrote:sen-in için hediye - a present for you (2sg-GEN for gift)

I think this would actually be more like "the gift for you" because nouns with a modifier tend to be interpreted as definite (or specific?) by default, causing the indefinite article to be used for indefinite singular meanings, so to say "a gift for you" it'd be senin için bir hediye. I think.

Based on the examples given in the OP, I think the question may have been misunderstood due to unclear phrasing. It seems to me the question is more like "Is there a language that can use an adpositional adjective phrase as regular adjectival phrase?"

So the prepositional phrases "of hers" and "for my brother" become adjectival phrases that modify "a doll" and "a gift" respectively.

The gift is [beautiful].
The gift is [for my brother].

The [beautiful] gift.
The [for my brother] gift.

It's a little more complex than this, but all the examples show a prepositional adjective phrase being placed it on the opposite side of the noun from where it normally would be.

Senin için bir hediye *is* a for-my-brother gift. Don't be fooled by the position of the article, it always comes between a modifier and its noun (That's how you tell it apart from the numeral "one"). A big gift is büyük bir hediye. One big gift is bir büyük hediye. Likewise, one present for you is bir senin için hediye.

Bu en iyi arkadaşım için hediyeyi o dükkanda aldım.
bu(n) en iyi arkadaş-(4)m için hediye-(y)4 o(n) dükkan-d2 al-d4-m
this most good friend-my for present-ACC.SPC that shop-LOC take-PST-1s
≈ I bought this for-my-best-friend present in that shop.

Bu hediyeyi en iyi arkadaşım için aldım.
bu(n) hediye-(y)4 en iyi arkadaş-(4)m için al-d4-m
this present-ACC.SPC most good friend-my for take-PST-1s
I bought this present for my friend. (ie. the buying was for her/him, maybe the present is for someone else and my friend didn't have time)

bu sana vereceğim hediye
bu(n) sen-(y)2 ver-(y)2c2k-(4)m hediye
this 2s-DAT give-FUT.PTCP-my gift
this gift that I'm going to give you

sana vereceğim bir hediye
sen-(y)2 ver-(y)2c2k-(4)m hediye
2s-DAT give-FUT.PTCP-my a gift
a gift that I'm going to give you

Serafín wrote:Do you guys know of any language that has adpositions (and I mean true, particle-like adpositions, not verb-like things), and that allows placing the adpositional phrase before a noun modified by it?

That is, such a language would allow things such as, literally, word by word, "of hers a doll" (meaning 'a doll of hers'), "for my brother the gift" ('the gift for my brother'), "of doing this a way" ('a way of doing this').

In Malayalam, you can't really say "the gift for my brother"; you'd have to say something like "the gift that I bought for my brother." But for the other two, I believe that is indeed the only way you can say these things because anything that modifies a noun must precede the noun in Malayalam:

അവളുടെ ഒരു പാവ
[əˈʋəɭɖe joˈɾu ˈpaːʋa]
/aʋaɭ-uʈe oɾu paːʋa/
PRO.3SG.FEM-POSS INDF.ART doll
'a doll of hers'

ഇത് ചെയ്യുന്നതിന്റെ ഒരു വഴി
[jɪˈd̪ɯ t͡ʃejˈjʊn̪n̪əd̪ɪnde joˈɾu ʋəˈɻi]
/i-t̪ɯ t͡ʃejj-un̪n̪u-a-t̪ɯ-inte oɾu ʋaɻi/
PROX-PRO do-PRES.PROG-DIST-PRO-POSS INDF.ART path/road/way
'a way of doing this' (more literally something like 'a road of that [unspecified subject] do(es) this')