Postpositions?

[Kuchigakatai]

With apologies to its authors, that book is absolute rubbish. To be fair, Wikipedia is rubbish too, but it sounds like that book somehow exceeds it. ‘Postposition’ is perhaps one of the single most common terms in linguistics, and any introductory text whatsoever should at least mention them. Furthermore, from your description, it seems to confuse prepositions with verbs. I’d throw the book away and find one which is actually correct.

The book is not necessarily "absolute rubbish" merely for not teaching postpositions. I'm not sure if you've had a look at textbooks used in intro linguistics classes, but concentrating on English structures while teaching basic syntax concepts is pretty typical. I don't care enough to do a survey but I'd bet various intro ling textbooks that don't teach postpositions could be found.

Among conlangers, interest in typology is strong for obvious reasons, but this is not necessarily the case for a linguist trying to write an intro textbook. Also consider that first/second language acquisition, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics may merit three chapters or four, reducing the available space for phonetics and grammar...


I agree I find Wikipedia to be messy and unreliable, sometimes terribly inconsistent (look at the Japanese grammar articles to cry), although it may not seem so until you start poking around the references, which can be very noticeably so much better.

[hwhatting]

In Icelandic, the preposition vegna 'because of' can act as a postposition. I thought it was a similar thing.

Being one of the few postpositions in prepositional languages, or being able to be used as a pre- and postposition, seems to be something that occurs with adposoitions meaning "because of" - Russian radi can be used as both (originally it was a postposition loaned from Iranian), and Latin causa is usually postponed (perhaps due to it being originally the ablative singular of the noun causa). German wegen is also originally a case form of Weg "way" and can be used as a postposition in (somewhat archaising) literary language and poetry - I assume it's cognate to the Icelandic word. Judging from the examples, that looks like it has something to do with typical grammaticalisation paths for prepositions with that meaning.

[WeepingElf]

With apologies to its authors, that book is absolute rubbish.

It seems as if all "... for Dummies" books are absolute rubbish. I found glaring mistakes in every single "...for Dummies" book I have read. For instance, Russian for Dummies claims that all Indo-European languages descend from Sanskrit, and the author obviously thinks that the Cyrillic alphabet is nothing a learner of Russian needs, and only briefly touches on it, but gives everything in an imprecise transcription. (And the German translation I did actually read vacillates between the English and the German transcription, so you don't know whether a z in a given word represents з or ц.)

[bradrn]

Among conlangers, interest in typology is strong for obvious reasons, but this is not necessarily the case for a linguist trying to write an intro textbook. Also consider that first/second language acquisition, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics may merit three chapters or four, reducing the available space for phonetics and grammar...

I accept this point, but, well… the difference between prepositions and postpositions is hardly advanced typology! I’m not asking for an in-depth discussion of ergativity or anything like that; just a reference to the fact that not all languages are exactly like IE. According to WALS, languages with postpositions are even more frequent than those with prepositions — it’s really unforgivable for a textbook to not at least mention that fact when it talks about syntax.

I agree I find Wikipedia to be messy and unreliable, sometimes terribly inconsistent (look at the Japanese grammar articles to cry), although it may not seem so until you start poking around the references, which can be very noticeably so much better.

Thank you for agreeing with me!

Judging from the examples, that looks like it has something to do with typical grammaticalisation paths for prepositions with that meaning.

This sounds interesting; could you elaborate?

[Vardelm]

I agree I find Wikipedia to be messy and unreliable, sometimes terribly inconsistent (look at the Japanese grammar articles to cry), although it may not seem so until you start poking around the references, which can be very noticeably so much better.

Thank you for agreeing with me!

Damn you for agreeing with him!

[Richard W]

I agree I find Wikipedia to be messy and unreliable, sometimes terribly inconsistent (look at the Japanese grammar articles to cry), although it may not seem so until you start poking around the references, which can be very noticeably so much better.

But keep up the good work in making this claim false!

[hwhatting]

Judging from the examples, that looks like it has something to do with typical grammaticalisation paths for prepositions with that meaning.

This sounds interesting; could you elaborate?

It seems that frequently adpositions with the meaning because are relatively transparently derived from case forms of nouns, and inherit from that status some freedom of placement in the sentence; one can argue that being more and more restructed to the position before the constituent they govern is part of their grammaticalisation process as prepositions.

[bradrn]

Judging from the examples, that looks like it has something to do with typical grammaticalisation paths for prepositions with that meaning.

This sounds interesting; could you elaborate?

It seems that frequently adpositions with the meaning because are relatively transparently derived from case forms of nouns

Sorry, I meant, could you elaborate on this grammaticalisation pathway.

[hwhatting]

Sorry, I meant, could you elaborate on this grammaticalisation pathway.

It's nothing fancy or unusual - you start with not having a specified preposition meaning because and different ways to express that meaning (e.g. case forms of different words), then a preferred form emerges, which then over time loses the characteristics of placement in the sentence typical for nominal constructions and ends up restricted to the Position tpical for prepositions.
This process seems to repeat itself - see how Latin causa doesn't exist as a simple preposition in the major Romance languages, but has been replaced by more elaborate (Sp. a causa de, It. a causa di, F. à / pour cause de) or different constructions (Sp. debido a, por culpa de; It. per via di; Fr. du fait de, dû à, en raison de).

[evmdbm]

English has one postposition as well, ago: four years ago.

You can easily argue that English has more than one. Words like to and for are so often used at the end of a sentence that we can hardly refer to them as prepositions anymore.

So what do we think these things hanging around at the end of a sentence actually are? One thing that doesn't really matter (because it works and is just quirky) but if I think about it drives me nuts as a native English speaker is
1. "I put my coat on." versus
2. "I put on my coat."

To me both are right and both mean the same thing, but what is this "on"? Is it a preposition in which case is there an implied NP in 1. "I put my coat on (my body?)" is it like a separable prefix in German so just part of the verb which in German disappears off to the end of the sentence? But if that is right, why does sentence 2 mean the same thing and why we can we not just agree on where the separable prefix goes, because it really does look like a preposition in sentence 2.

[bradrn]

Sorry, I meant, could you elaborate on this grammaticalisation pathway.

It's nothing fancy or unusual - you start with not having a specified preposition meaning because and different ways to express that meaning (e.g. case forms of different words), then a preferred form emerges, which then over time loses the characteristics of placement in the sentence typical for nominal constructions and ends up restricted to the Position tpical for prepositions.
This process seems to repeat itself - see how Latin causa doesn't exist as a simple preposition in the major Romance languages, but has been replaced by more elaborate (Sp. a causa de, It. a causa di, F. à / pour cause de) or different constructions (Sp. debido a, por culpa de; It. per via di; Fr. du fait de, dû à, en raison de).

I really need to make clearer posts… what I wanted to know was more information on how because can possibly be derived from nominal case forms, since I can’t imagine how that could proceed.

[bradrn]

English has one postposition as well, ago: four years ago.

You can easily argue that English has more than one. Words like to and for are so often used at the end of a sentence that we can hardly refer to them as prepositions anymore.

So what do we think these things hanging around at the end of a sentence actually are? One thing that doesn't really matter (because it works and is just quirky) but if I think about it drives me nuts as a native English speaker is
1. "I put my coat on." versus
2. "I put on my coat."

To me both are right and both mean the same thing, but what is this "on"? Is it a preposition in which case is there an implied NP in 1. "I put my coat on (my body?)" is it like a separable prefix in German so just part of the verb which in German disappears off to the end of the sentence? But if that is right, why does sentence 2 mean the same thing and why we can we not just agree on where the separable prefix goes, because it really does look like a preposition in sentence 2.

Personally, I consider ‘on’ to be a member of an entirely separate word class — the class seems to be typically called ‘particles’, though I prefer ‘directionals’. This is because, as you’ve noticed, they have an entirely different distribution to most other English word classes.

[evmdbm]

But why is this different for "up"? or "down"
1. I climbed the mountain up
2. I climbed up the mountain

Only sentence 2 is right... but up is directional, like down is...
1. I could climb down the mountain
2. I could climb the mountain down (errm no, I couldn't...)

[hwhatting]

I really need to make clearer posts… what I wanted to know was more information on how because can possibly be derived from nominal case forms, since I can’t imagine how that could proceed.

Look at my Romance examples - Latin causa (ablative singular of causa "reason") is exactly parallel to Sp. a causa de, It. a causa di, F. à / pour cause de, only Latin has case inflection instead of prepositional constructions like Romance. German wegen originally means something "by way of". Etc.

[KathTheDragon]

Personally, I consider ‘on’ to be a member of an entirely separate word class — the class seems to be typically called ‘particles’, though I prefer ‘directionals’. This is because, as you’ve noticed, they have an entirely different distribution to most other English word classes.

But why is this different for "up"? or "down"
1. I climbed the mountain up
2. I climbed up the mountain

Only sentence 2 is right... but up is directional, like down is...
1. I could climb down the mountain
2. I could climb the mountain down (errm no, I couldn't...)

I lean towards a different analysis whereby "put on" is a single verb that happens to be made of a simplex verb and an adverb/preposition. Such verbs (all, or only some?) have the rule that the adverb/preposition can be split from the simplex verb by the object.

This also answers evmdbm: "climb up" and "climb down" simply are not single verbs in this class. They are better analysed as a verb "climb" with a prepositional complement "up/down the mountain".

[cedh]

So what do we think these things hanging around at the end of a sentence actually are? One thing that doesn't really matter (because it works and is just quirky) but if I think about it drives me nuts as a native English speaker is
1. "I put my coat on." versus
2. "I put on my coat."

To me both are right and both mean the same thing, but what is this "on"? Is it a preposition in which case is there an implied NP in 1. "I put my coat on (my body?)" is it like a separable prefix in German so just part of the verb which in German disappears off to the end of the sentence? But if that is right, why does sentence 2 mean the same thing and why we can we not just agree on where the separable prefix goes, because it really does look like a preposition in sentence 2.

In addition to what has already been said, note that "on" in example 2 does not act as a preposition at all. "My coat" is not part of a prepositional phrase "on my coat", which you can see from the fact that "[ put on ] [ my coat ]" and "[ put ] [ on my coat ]" mean completely different things.

[vegfarandi]

So what do we think these things hanging around at the end of a sentence actually are? One thing that doesn't really matter (because it works and is just quirky) but if I think about it drives me nuts as a native English speaker is
1. "I put my coat on." versus
2. "I put on my coat."

To me both are right and both mean the same thing, but what is this "on"? Is it a preposition in which case is there an implied NP in 1. "I put my coat on (my body?)" is it like a separable prefix in German so just part of the verb which in German disappears off to the end of the sentence? But if that is right, why does sentence 2 mean the same thing and why we can we not just agree on where the separable prefix goes, because it really does look like a preposition in sentence 2.

In addition to what has already been said, note that "on" in example 2 does not act as a preposition at all. "My coat" is not part of a prepositional phrase "on my coat", which you can see from the fact that "[ put on ] [ my coat ]" and "[ put ] [ on my coat ]" mean completely different things.

These things are often called verb particles and I've also heard verb extensions. Some have to be contiguous with the verb, like "I worked out this morning" "I finished up painting the house" vs. *"I worked this morning out" and *"I finished painting the house up". Others can appear in either position: "I figured out the system" and "I figured the system out". They're usually etymologically/morphologically identical to prepositions and adverbs, but like people have pointed out, they're quite specific in their distribution and usually a part of the verb in a sense, because the verb will often change meaning without them.

[Linguoboy]

But if that is right, why does sentence 2 mean the same thing and why we can we not just agree on where the separable prefix goes, because it really does look like a preposition in sentence 2.

Why would we need to do that? Since put is a transitive verb, there's no ambiguity. For on my coat to be interpreted as a prepositional phrase in I put on my coat, the sentence would need an explicit direct object (e.g. "I put it on my coat".)

[Travis B.]

So what do we think these things hanging around at the end of a sentence actually are? One thing that doesn't really matter (because it works and is just quirky) but if I think about it drives me nuts as a native English speaker is
1. "I put my coat on." versus
2. "I put on my coat."

To me both are right and both mean the same thing, but what is this "on"? Is it a preposition in which case is there an implied NP in 1. "I put my coat on (my body?)" is it like a separable prefix in German so just part of the verb which in German disappears off to the end of the sentence? But if that is right, why does sentence 2 mean the same thing and why we can we not just agree on where the separable prefix goes, because it really does look like a preposition in sentence 2.

In addition to what has already been said, note that "on" in example 2 does not act as a preposition at all. "My coat" is not part of a prepositional phrase "on my coat", which you can see from the fact that "[ put on ] [ my coat ]" and "[ put ] [ on my coat ]" mean completely different things.

These things are often called verb particles and I've also heard verb extensions. Some have to be contiguous with the verb, like "I worked out this morning" "I finished up painting the house" vs. *"I worked this morning out" and *"I finished painting the house up". Others can appear in either position: "I figured out the system" and "I figured the system out". They're usually etymologically/morphologically identical to prepositions and adverbs, but like people have pointed out, they're quite specific in their distribution and usually a part of the verb in a sense, because the verb will often change meaning without them.

Exactly. Just because something that sometimes can be used as a preposition occurs before an NP in English does not actually mean it is a preposition. In cases like these I would call them verb particles and regard them as analogous with separable verb prefixes in German.

[Richard W]

... and why we can we not just agree on where the separable prefix goes, because it really does look like a preposition in sentence 2.

There's a tension between two aims. One is to keep verb and object adjacent. The other is that long phrases are often shunted to the end of the sentence, and objects can be long phrases.