Pyramids of spatial relators in Northeastern Turkic and its neighbors
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Lars Johanson
Abstract
The paper deals with the coding of basic spatial relations in Northeastern Turkic of Siberia-Mongolia and its neighbors. The devices available are taken to represent five successive levels of a “pyramid”, standing for different degrees of semantic accuracy: (A) markerless constructions, (B) simple case suffixes, (C) composite case suffixes, (D) simple postpositions, and (E) composite postpositions. Allegedly simple notions in human spatial cognition, represented by semantic primitives such as ‘in’ and ‘on’ and assumed to be coded directly across languages, are only found at level E. It is suggested that the spatial relators might be dealt with in the framework of an old Transeurasian system, whose devices were eventually replaced by those of more fine-grained contents. Throughout the languages in question, spatial relators tend to get dynamic and non-dynamic interpretations according to the movement character of the predicate verb. This shared pecularity might be explainable in terms of genealogical retention.
Abstract
The paper deals with the coding of basic spatial relations in Northeastern Turkic of Siberia-Mongolia and its neighbors. The devices available are taken to represent five successive levels of a “pyramid”, standing for different degrees of semantic accuracy: (A) markerless constructions, (B) simple case suffixes, (C) composite case suffixes, (D) simple postpositions, and (E) composite postpositions. Allegedly simple notions in human spatial cognition, represented by semantic primitives such as ‘in’ and ‘on’ and assumed to be coded directly across languages, are only found at level E. It is suggested that the spatial relators might be dealt with in the framework of an old Transeurasian system, whose devices were eventually replaced by those of more fine-grained contents. Throughout the languages in question, spatial relators tend to get dynamic and non-dynamic interpretations according to the movement character of the predicate verb. This shared pecularity might be explainable in terms of genealogical retention.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The editors vii
- The authors ix
- Preface xi
- Introduction xiii
- A deceptive case of split-intransitivity in Basque 1
- Some argument-structure properties of ‘give’ in the languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia 17
- Grammatical relations in a typology of agreement systems 37
- Causatives in Agul 55
- Continuity of information structuring strategies in Eastern Khanty 115
- Patterns of asymmetry in argument structure across languages 133
- Topic marking and the construction of narrative in Xibe 151
- On the hierarchy of structural convergence in the Amdo Sprachbund 177
- Pyramids of spatial relators in Northeastern Turkic and its neighbors 191
- What’s in the head of head-marking languages? 211
- Transitives, causatives and passives in Korean and Japanese 241
- Core argument patterns and deep genetic relations 257
- Three takes on grammatical relations 295
- On aspect, aspectual domain and quantification in Finnish and Udmurt 325
- Indexes 355
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- The editors vii
- The authors ix
- Preface xi
- Introduction xiii
- A deceptive case of split-intransitivity in Basque 1
- Some argument-structure properties of ‘give’ in the languages of Europe and Northern and Central Asia 17
- Grammatical relations in a typology of agreement systems 37
- Causatives in Agul 55
- Continuity of information structuring strategies in Eastern Khanty 115
- Patterns of asymmetry in argument structure across languages 133
- Topic marking and the construction of narrative in Xibe 151
- On the hierarchy of structural convergence in the Amdo Sprachbund 177
- Pyramids of spatial relators in Northeastern Turkic and its neighbors 191
- What’s in the head of head-marking languages? 211
- Transitives, causatives and passives in Korean and Japanese 241
- Core argument patterns and deep genetic relations 257
- Three takes on grammatical relations 295
- On aspect, aspectual domain and quantification in Finnish and Udmurt 325
- Indexes 355
