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Masahiko, Ch. Nose: 6 International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (Berlin) 30, SEP. 2010
Masahiko, Ch. Nose: 6 International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (Berlin) 30, SEP. 2010
prepositions or postpositions:
a contrastive study
6th International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (Berlin) 30, SEP. 2010
TIME IS SPACE
PERSON> OBJECT> ACTIVITY> SPACE> TIME> QUALITY
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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2/27
Major temporal meanings: previous studies
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3/27
Unusual temporal expressions 1
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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4/27
Unusual temporal expressions 2
Verb-based temporal in the languages of
New Guinea
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5/27
Purpose of this contrastive study
Temporal meanings using cases, prepositions, or
postpositions; NP-based temporal forms
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8/27
Method of thecontrastive study Paulo, Coelho’s
“Alchemist” (A)
“By the River Piedra I sat down and
wept”(P)
Watch- “11 minutes”(E)
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9/27
10 temporal meanings in this study
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10/27
English, locative prepositions
At four (o’clock) (P) Preposition, space
For 2 minutes (A) Preposition, not space
On Monday (E) Preposition, space
A week ago (A) Adpositional adverb
At noon (A) Preposition, space
Until dawn (P) Preposition, space
Three days from now (A) Preposition, space, and adverb
That morning (A)/ in the summer (P) No marking/ Preposition, space
As a child/ when we were younger (A) Conjunction, or temporal clause
At the same time (P) Preposition, space
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Examples: 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)
– Am: Week osol hedoob (week one “before”)
– Tp: bipo long wanpela wik (“before” prep one week)
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18/27
Observed forms: frequent grams and others
Frequent grammatical form Other options
English Preposition on space (at, “for”, adpostional adverb “ago”, no
marking, temporal clause
on, in)
Hungarian Case No marking, postposition, noun
“kor”
(temporal/locative)
Japanese Case Adpositional nouns: kan, mae, go,
adverbial
Chinese Preposition No marking, adopostional noun
“time”
Amele Postposition Adpositional adverb “hedoob”, no
marking
Tok Pisin Preposition “long X” No marking, “bipo, bihain”
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Variations of the related forms
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25/27
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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References (selected):The slides are available from: http://www.scribd.com/doc/
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