John Benjamins Publishing Company
"Ago" and its grammatical status in English and in other languages
Abstract
The paper focuses firstly on English ago followed by the temporal NP, which seems to function as a postposition, although English is a SVO language, with prepositions. A comparison is then carried out with similar deictic expressions in other languages, including European, Semitic, Caucasian, Oceanic languages. From the results of this limited typology of languages based on the parameter of the equivalent forms of ago, it may be seen that while many languages use an adposition (e.g. German, Turkish, Arabic), including languages that have a verb-derived adposition (e.g. Romance languages and English), others use an adverbial expression (e.g. Russian, Tagalog, Basque).
Abstract
The paper focuses firstly on English ago followed by the temporal NP, which seems to function as a postposition, although English is a SVO language, with prepositions. A comparison is then carried out with similar deictic expressions in other languages, including European, Semitic, Caucasian, Oceanic languages. From the results of this limited typology of languages based on the parameter of the equivalent forms of ago, it may be seen that while many languages use an adposition (e.g. German, Turkish, Arabic), including languages that have a verb-derived adposition (e.g. Romance languages and English), others use an adverbial expression (e.g. Russian, Tagalog, Basque).
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
- The contributors 13
- French compound prepositions, prepositional locutions and prepositional phrases in the scope of the absolute use 17
- "Over the hills and far away" or "far away over the hills": English place adverb phrases and place prepositional phrases in tandem? 37
- Structures with omitted prepositions: Semantic and pragmatic motivations 67
- A closer look at the Hebrew Construct and free locative PPs: The analysis of mi- locatives 85
- Pragmatics of prepositions: A study of the French connectives pour le coup and du coup 115
- Particles and postpositions in Korean 133
- French prepositions à and de in infinitival complements: A pragma-semantic analysis 171
- Prepositional wars: When ideology defines preposition 191
- "Ago" and its grammatical status in English and in other languages 209
- Case marking of Turkic adpositional objects 229
- The logic of addition: Changes in the meaning of the Hebrew preposition im ("with"). 257
- A monosemic view of polysemic prepositions 273
- The development of Classical Armenian prepositions and its implications for universals of language change 289
- Author index 301
- Languages index 303
- Subject index 305
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents vii
- Introduction 1
- The contributors 13
- French compound prepositions, prepositional locutions and prepositional phrases in the scope of the absolute use 17
- "Over the hills and far away" or "far away over the hills": English place adverb phrases and place prepositional phrases in tandem? 37
- Structures with omitted prepositions: Semantic and pragmatic motivations 67
- A closer look at the Hebrew Construct and free locative PPs: The analysis of mi- locatives 85
- Pragmatics of prepositions: A study of the French connectives pour le coup and du coup 115
- Particles and postpositions in Korean 133
- French prepositions à and de in infinitival complements: A pragma-semantic analysis 171
- Prepositional wars: When ideology defines preposition 191
- "Ago" and its grammatical status in English and in other languages 209
- Case marking of Turkic adpositional objects 229
- The logic of addition: Changes in the meaning of the Hebrew preposition im ("with"). 257
- A monosemic view of polysemic prepositions 273
- The development of Classical Armenian prepositions and its implications for universals of language change 289
- Author index 301
- Languages index 303
- Subject index 305
