Summary Details
| Query: |
Goal-Location-Source Ambiguities
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| Author: | Sander Lestrade | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Morphology
Typology |
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| Summary: |
I was searching for languages that do not make a distinction between source
and location in their spatial case system, but do have a separate case marker for goal meaning. Some of you referred to the very interesting work of Nikitina, which I forgot to mention in my query (and know of course ;) ). Latin seems to be a good example: ablative expressing both source and location: ''Romae'' (abl) meaning ���from/in Rome���; Romam (acc) meaning ���to Rome���. Some Saami languages (at least Inari) should have a locative case to express both source and location, and an illative for goal . The directionality distinction in Cantonese is not made with case but with the verb, and might have the ambiguity I���m after: sinsang hai bakging ''The teachers are in Beijing'' sinsang hai bakging lai ''The teachers from Beijing come'' vs. sinsang lai bakging ''The teachers come [to] Beijing'' These examples still need to be checked with native speakers, however, and I���m not sure about the role of ���lai��� in the second example. Then, there are many Indo-European languages languages in which prepositions combine with different cases to distinguish between goal and location. This could mean that source meaning patterns with the ���location case���, but it could also be that it has a specific adposition (as in English ���from��� versus ���on(to)���). Thanks for all your help! Sander Lestrade |
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| LL Issue: | 19.3044 | |
| Date Posted: | 08-Oct-2008 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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