Anatoli Strigin, Marcus Kracht, Assinja Demjjanow
Anatoli Strigin; Marcus Kracht (eds.)

Papers on the Interpretation of Case

ISBN: 978-3-935024-18-1
107 pages
Release year 2000

Series: Linguistics in Potsdam , 10

5,00 

The present paper deals with the semantics of locative expressions. Our approach is model-theoretic, using concepts from topology and linear algebra. We shall demonstrate that locatives consist of two layers: the first layer defines a location and the second a way of mov­ing with respect to that location. There is to our knowledge no lan­guage in which locations form a morphologically independent class of words. Hence, the elements defining these layers, called localiser and modaliser, tend to form a unit, which is typically either an apposition or a case marker. It will be seen that this layering is not only semanti­cally manifest but in many languages also morphologically. There are numerous languages in which the morphology is sufficiently transpar­ent with respect to the layering. The consequences of this theory are manifold. For example, we shall show that it explains the contrast be­tween English and Finnish concerning directionals, which is discussed in Fong. In addition, we shall be concerned with the question of orientation of locatives, as discussed in Nam. We propose that nondirectional locatives are oriented to the event, while directional locatives are oriented to certain arguments, called movers.

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The present paper deals with the semantics of locative expressions. Our approach is model-theoretic, using concepts from topology and linear algebra. We shall demonstrate that locatives consist of two layers: the first layer defines a location and the second a way of mov­ing with respect to that location. There is to our knowledge no lan­guage in which locations form a morphologically independent class of words. Hence, the elements defining these layers, called localiser and modaliser, tend to form a unit, which is typically either an apposition or a case marker. It will be seen that this layering is not only semanti­cally manifest but in many languages also morphologically. There are numerous languages in which the morphology is sufficiently transpar­ent with respect to the layering. The consequences of this theory are manifold. For example, we shall show that it explains the contrast be­tween English and Finnish concerning directionals, which is discussed in Fong. In addition, we shall be concerned with the question of orientation of locatives, as discussed in Nam. We propose that nondirectional locatives are oriented to the event, while directional locatives are oriented to certain arguments, called movers.