LINGUIST List 6.1157

Fri Aug 25 1995

Qs: Amharic, Risk taking, Pre- & post- position

Editor for this issue: T. Daniel Seely <dseelyemunix.emich.edu>

Directory

1. , Re: Amharic
2. , Risk
3. Taylor Roberts, Simultaneous prepositions and postpositions in Pashto

I am doing independent study on the rift valley of Africa. Amharic is a
dialect spoken in that area, primarily Eithiopia.

I am trying to assertain what certain words would be in that language.

For example, -- Lion -- Death -- baby-- water -- man -- woman -- family.

Any help would be appreciated

Ed. Wagner

A colleague and I are researching the differing degrees of risk perceived by
 our Hong Kong students in different contexts where spoken English is
required. We would be interested to find out more about research in the area of
risk-taking in language learning. So far we haven't come up with much. Can
anyone help here?

I'm looking for analyses of nominal constructions (in any language) in
which the NP has _both_ a preposition and a postposition. For example,
Pashto has constructions like the following, from Herbert Penzl, _A
Grammar of Pashto_ (Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned
Societies, 1955), p. 41:

 we sarri te
 to man to
 'to the man'

The preposition is sometimes optional, though the postposition is
obligatory. Since Pashto is head-final (the unmarked word order is
SOV), it's tempting to take the postposition at face-value. However,
there are some binding facts that suggest that a phrase containing an
NP+postposition is referential, and so it might be possible to analyze
the postposition as some kind of case marker. I understand that there
may be such a distinction between homophonous case markers and
postpositions in Japanese, for example.

I'd be grateful if anyone could suggest any articles that deal with
these constructions. And if there are other linguists who are studying
Pashto, I'd like to hear from you. Thanks for any help!

Taylor Roberts <trobertsmit.edu>