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prepositions or postpositions:
a contrastive study
6th International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (Berlin) 30, SEP. 2010
SPACE TIME
At house At noon
On the car On Sunday
Tokyo-ni (in Tokyo) Getsuyou-ni (on Monday)
Tokyo-kara (from Tokyo) Asu-kara (from tomorrow)
Egyetem-en (at Univ.) Kedd-en (on Tuesday)
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Major temporal meanings: previous studies
Space and Time can be considered together
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Unusual temporal expressions 1/2
Time-related cases in Hungarian
• Distributive-temporal:-nta/-nte
– Napo-nta (day-dis.temp) “every day”
– Hete-nte (week-dis.temp) “every week”
– > This usage is rare
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Unusual temporal expressions 2/2
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Purpose of this contrastive study
Temporal meanings using cases, prepositions, or
postpositions; NP-based temporal forms
1. Cross-linguistic: Indo-European, Finno-Ugric, East
Asia, New Guinea (one creole)
2. 10 temporal meanings of in-essive, pre-essive,
post-essive, perlative, and allative
3. Two kinds of temporal meanings:
– Life-based time (primitive, abstract time): day,
morning, afternoon, evening, at the same time, etc.
– Watch-based time (including calendar time):minute,
hour, week, Sunday, etc.
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Sample languages: 6 languages including creole
Among 6 languages,
(1) Time expressions can be
considered with Space/Location
(2) There are functional differences
between abstract and artificial
* Generated by WALS, Language
temporal forms Viewer
Reitaku University
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Basic information on sample 6 languages
Genera Basic word Number of Prepositional
order cases or
postpositional
English Indo-European SVO Genitive and Prepositions
accusative
Hungarian Finno-Ugric No dominant 18 cases and Postpositions
order additional
cases
Japanese East Asia, SOV 11 cases Postpositions
unknown
Chinese East Asia, Sino- SVO No case Prepositions
Tibetan
Amele Trans-New SOV No case Postpositions
Guinea
Tok Pisin Melanesia, SVO No case Prepositions
Creole
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Method of this study Paulo, Coelho’s
“Alchemist” (A)
“By the River Piedra I sat down and
wept”(P)
Watch- “11 minutes”(E)
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Examining 10 temporal meanings
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Results of this study 1-6:
1. English, Prepositions based on space:
at, on, in, from, until
Adpostional adverb: ago (Kurzon2008)
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2. Japanese, Cases based on space: ni(at), made(until)
Space-based adpositional nouns: kan(between), mae(before),
go(after), koro(around) / Pre-essive: mae-ni (-before-case)
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3. Hungarian, Cases based on space: Sublative (onto),
Superessive (on), Inessive (in), Terminative (until)
Cases based on time: Temporal (-kor), Distributive-temporal (-nta)
Others: Postposition based on space: Inside (belül), non-grammticalized noun “kor”;
“ages, days, time, years”
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4. Chinese, Preposition based on space: Zai
Adpostional nouns: zhong (bell), shi (time), shi jian (time)
Adpostional adverbs: qian (before), hou (around)
Many temporal meanings are realized in “no gram. marking”
Xia4 wu3 si4 dian3 (P); afternoon 4 clock No marking
Liang3 fen1 zhong1 (A); 2 minutes-bell Time adverb “bell”
Deng3 xing1 qi1 yi1 hui2 dao4 …shi2 (E); Using with verb and noun “time”
temporal clause
Shang4 zhou1 (A); last week No marking
Zhong1 wu3 (A); noon No marking
Zai4 tian1 liang4 zhi qian2 (P); prep.- Preposition, space, and adverb “before”
dawn-before
San1 tian1 shi2 jian1 (A); 3 day time No marking and noun “time”
(there are)
Zai4 qing1 chen2 (A); prep.-morning Preposition, space
Xiao3 shi2 hou4 (A); young-time-around No marking and time adverbial “around”
Tong2 shi2 (P); same time No marking
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5. Amele, Postposition based on space: na (at, on, in, with, of)
Pre-essive and pos-tessive: both are hedoob; adverbial
Borrowings: kilok, minut, Mande, week
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6. Tok Pisin, Preposition based on space: long (multifunctional)
Adpostional adverbs: bipo (before), bihain (behind), inap (enough)
Borrowings: kilok, minut, Mande, wik, moning, taim
Long 4 kilok Preposition, space and borrowing “clock”
Long 2 minut Preposition, space and borrowing “minute”
Long Mande Preposition, space and borrowing “Monday”
Bipo long wanpela wik Preposition, space, Adpositional adverb (bipo) and
borrowing “week”
Belo kaikai No marking, lexical
Igo inap moning Adpositional adverb (igo, inap) and borrowing “enough,
morning”
Tripela day bihain Adpositional adverb (bihain) and borrowing “day”
Long dispela moning/ Preposition, space and borrowing “morning” / no summer
taim bilong san (dry and wet season)
Taim mi yangpela yet No marking, clause-like, and borrowing “time, young, yet”
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Summary 1: Gram. forms with Space: not so many
English Japanese Hungarian Chinese Amele Tok Pisin
At four (inessive) S “at” S “ni” Time S “na” S “long”
On Monday (inessive) S S “ni” S (on) S “na” S “long”
At noon (inessive) S “at” S “ni” S (in)
That morning S “zai4” S “na” S “long”
(inessive)
At the same time S “at” S “ni” S (in)
(inessive)
For 2 minutes S (onto) S “na” S “long”
(perlative)
A week ago (Pre- S “ni” S (on) S “long”
essive)
bipo
As a child (Pre-essive) S (in)
5 minutes later Bihain
(Post-essive)
Until dawn (allative) S S S S “zai4”
Numbers 5/10 6/10 7/10 2/10 4/10 5/10
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Summary 2: frequent grams and other options
•Every language has at least one grammatical form, mainly for
in-essive meaning
•They are cases, prepositions, or postposition, including Space
Frequent grammatical form(s) Other options
English Prepositions on space (at, “for”, adpostional adverb “ago”,
no marking, temporal clause
on, in)
Hungarian Cases (locative/temporal) No marking, postposition, noun
“kor”
Japanese Case (X-ni) Adpositional nouns: kan, mae,
go, adverbial
Chinese One preposition (zai4 X) No marking, adopostional noun
“time”
Amele One postposition (X-na) Adpositional adverb “hedoob”,
no marking
Tok Pisin One preposition (long X) No marking, “bipo, bihain”
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Variations of the related non-grammatical forms
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Differences between Watch- and Life-based time
Watch-based time Life-based time
Grammatical Yes Yes, but not many in
markers Amele and Tok Pisin
Adpositional Observed in pre-essive, and post-
phrases essive meanings
Hungarian locative Cases with “ON” Cases with “IN”
cases
English, Japanese No significant difference
Chinese Mainly lexical, only one preposition
“zai4”is used for in-essive and allative
Amele, Tok pisin postp, prep+ Lexical or not used
borrowed nouns with postp, prep
from English
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Conclusion: Space and time are not used together so
much (esp. Chinese, Amele).
Each language has at least one inessive-based grammatical form
including space function.
• Grammatical forms frequently are observed in In-essive and allative meanings
• The languages with rich case system have many case usage based on space
(“ni” case in Japanese, and “IN” and “ON” locative cases in Hungarian)
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References (selected):The slides are available from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/37915012/
Bennet, David C. 1975. Spatial and temporal uses of English prepositions: an essay in stratificational
semantics. London: Longman.
Comrie, Bernard. 1985. Tense. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dixon, R.M.W. 2010. Basic Linguistic Theory, Volume 1: Methodology. Oxford: OUP.
Hagège, Claude. 2010. Adpositions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hapelmath, Martin. 1997. From Space to Time: temporal adverbials in the World’s Languages. Munich:
Lincom Europa.
Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi, & Friederike Hünnemeyer. 1991. Grammaticalization: a conceptual
framework. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Kurzon, Dennis. 2002. ‘Preposition’ as functor: the case of long in Bislama. In: Feigenbaum, Susanne, &
Dennis Kurzon(eds.). Prepositions in their syntactic, semantic and pragmatic context.
Amstedam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 231-248.
Kurzon, Dennis. 2008. “Ago” and its grammatical status in English and other languages. In: Kurzon,
Dennis & Silvia Adler (eds.). Adpositions. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins: 209-227.
McWhorter, John C. 2001. The World’s simplest grammar are creole grammars. Linguistic Typology
5:125-166.
Mihalic, Francis. 1986. The Jacaranda Dictionary and Grammar of Melanesian Pidgin. Milton: The
Jacaranda Press/Web Books.
Roberts, John R. 1987. Amele. London/New York/Sydney: Croom Helm.
Nitta, Yoshio. 2002. Aspects of Adverbial expressions (Fukushiteki hyougen-no shosou). Tokyo: Kuroshio
Publishers.
Reitaku University
Tenkyu tumas long tok bilong mi!
Acknowledgments:
• Grant-in-aid from Linguistic Research Center, Reitaku University, Japan; Linguistic
Documentation and Analysis of Fieldwork studies: Papua New Guinea and Germany (2010)
with Ken Sasahara
• Grant-in-aid from Linguistic Research Center, Reitaku University, Japan; A study of
locational expressions in the languages of New Guinea island (2009)
• Amele & Tok Pisin: Villagers in Sein, Madang Province, Papua New Guinea
• Chinese: Yanyun Chen
• Hungarian: data gathered at University of Miskolc, Hungary
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Examples 1/2: In-essive
• Piedra
– En: It closed at noon
– Jp: Juuniji-ni-wa shimaru karana (twelve o’clock-
case “ni”- case “wa”; topic marker)
– Hu: Dél-ben bezárt (south-inessive case)
– Ch: zhong1 wu3 (noon: lexical)
– Am: ahinec saab (lunch eating: borrowed from
Tok Pisin?)/ 12 kilok-na
– Tp: belo kaikai (lunch eating)/ long 12 kilok
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Examples 2/2: pre-essive
• Alchemist
– En: He had had the same dream that night as a
week ago,
– Jp: Kare-wa isshuukan mae-ni mitayume-to (one
week adpositional noun “before”-ni (inessive))
– Hu: Ugyanazt álmodta, mint a múlt hét-en, (last
week-superessive “on”)
– Ch: shang4 zhou1 (last week; no marking)
– Am: Week osol hedoob (week one “before”:adv.)
– Tp: bipo long wanpela wik (“before” prep one week)
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