Ambipositions
Alan Libert
University of Newcastle
Two major categories of relational words are prepositions and positions, the difference between them having to do with whether they precede or follow their object. There is a relatively small group of words of the same general type which can be placed either before or after their object. Such words have been given the name ambipositions. A possible (though not uncontroversial) example from English is through, e.g. he walked through the forest and he slept the whole night through. Other examples are German entlang and Ancient Greek peri. This book is a detailed examination of this unusual type of word.
Contents: Preface, Abbreviations, 1 Introduction, 2 Ambipositions with Simple Behavior, 3 Meaning Differences Depending on Position, 4 Ambipositions with Case Marking Differences in Different Positions, 5 Differences in Types of Complement Allowed, 6 Differences in Form of Prepositional and Postpositional Occurrences, 7 Ambipositions from an Historical Point of View, 8 Conclusion, References.
(with examples from Old and Middle English, French, Dutch, German, Scandinavian Languages, Latin, Greek, Old Indic Languages, Modern Indic Languages, Armenian, Baltic Languages, Polish, Estonian, Finnish, other Finno-Saamic Languages, Hu ngarian, Old Georgian and Georgian, Berbice Dutch Creole, Uralic Languages, North Arawak Languages, Vedic, Slovenian, Italic Languages, Sindhi, Tetelcingo Nahutal).
ISBN 9783895867477. LINCOM Studies in Language Typology 13. 106 pp. 2006.
