Adpositions
The term “adposition” is a generic wrapper around the terms preposition, postposition and circumposition. Whereas English has prepositions (and some postpositions) – separate words – for ideas such as “in”, “on”, “between” and so on, Cenyani typically does not. Cenyani, instead, relies heavily on suffixes on nouns (and pronouns) to indicate spatial, temporal and other relationships.
Because of their complexity and their ability to detach under certain conditions, I will not label the Cenyani adposition-suffixes as “cases”. They are not cases; they just happen to be actually attached to the words they modify. Other languages have very similar suffixes – languages such as Hungarian – which are sometimes called cases. The Cenyani adpositions are definitely not cases, which becomes increasingly apparent if you examine them closely and notice that one of them is actually affixed to a core case other than nominative.
- Contents
- 1 Rules of usage
- 1.1 Detachment
- 2 Actual adpositions
The cenya group their adpositions into three types:
- Spatial:
- these describe spatial relationships, quite simply; that is, the relationship between physical objects in physical space. Like “on” and “under” and so on.
- Temporal:
- these describe temporal relationships (logical, isn’t it?) – that is, the relationship between objects in time, which may include a backreference to the past, a reference to the future, duration, etc.
- Other:
- this group contains adpositions which do not fit into either of the groups above. These include ideas like: instrument (“with”), company (“with”), equipment/belonging (“with”), and so on.
Spatial and temporal adpositions are often very similar, and are in many cases even identical. Time is considered, by the cenya, to be another dimension, another “space” in the most abstract of terms, through which all things move.
Rules of usage
Like with all other suffixes in the Cenyani language, there are rules which determine how adpositions are affixed to nouns. In the lists below, you might notice most suffixes begins with -[r]. This relates to one of the two rules Cenyani has with regard to adpositions:
- If the noun ends in a vowel, an r (the linking consonant) is inserted between the noun and the affix. For example, in the nominative singular, roš (“town, village; city”) is rošy when indefinite and rošon when definite. Applying the suffix -[r]a (“in”) to both of these forms would yield, respectively, rošyra and rošona.
- Adpositions are applied only to the nominative of the noun, with one exception. The genitive may not be used in conjunction with adpositions.
Where adposition suffixes begin with a vowel, this linking vowel is used if the noun ends in a consonant. This primarily happens with adpositions used mainly on plural nouns, and adpositions which would otherwise be polysyllabic. Using rošy and rošon again, -[a]nta (“in front of”) on both of these would result in rošynta and rošonanta. This bracketed letter is called the linking sound.
Note, however, that there are actually some irregular adpositions, which are described in greater detail below.
Detachment
Under some circumstances, Cenyani adpositions can be detached from the noun they modify. This typically only happens with so-called nominal adjectives (see more under adjectives) – that is, adjectives which are being used as nouns, such as “the poor” or “the green one” – and with complex noun phrases (see more under syntax). Adpositions may also sometimes be detached if the noun is a very long compound noun, to keep it from gaining an unpronouncable number of syllables.
When an adposition is detached, it is placed in front of the noun or noun phrase it modifies, and the linking sound is prefixed to the adposition. For example, -[r]a detaches as ra, -[a]nta as anta, and so on. Furthermore, unless the noun phrase is followed by another detached adposition or is at the very end of the sentence, the word rr must immediately follow the head of the noun phrase. “With (in the company of) the blue one”, where “blue” is alto and “with” in this case is -[r]öll, would be röll altoxon rr. Note that there are some irregular adpositions which defy both of these rules.
Also be aware that there are some adpositions which are always detached.
Actual adpositions
The adpositions that have been marked with an asterisk (*) in the list below can be modified with -t to indicate transition to the state the adposition describes, and with -o to indicate transition from. For example, -[r]at means “(movement) into”, and -[r]ao means “(movement) out of”.
For many of the other spatial adpositions, the noun phrase can be prepended with acat to indicate transition to, and aco for transition from. For example:
“She came from in front of the small house.”
Spatial
- -[r]a*
- in, inside of
- -[r]an*
- on, on top of (horizontal surface)
- -[r]ax*
- on (vertical surface); against (as in leaning against or similar); -[r]axt usually translates as “towards”, e.g. “she leant towards the wall”
- -[r]ac*
- at, by, near, close to; in the general vicinity of; note: detaches as ro
- -[r]ay*
- within (within a boundary or enclosure – like within a square or within the castle walls –, as opposed to in a container, which is -[r]a); among, e.g. a god among men
- -[r]ar
- outside of (a container or an enclosure); around, surrounding
- -[r]acrr
- next to, beside (of objects placed side by side); becomes -[r]acrrt and -[r]acrrto when modified
- -[a]xar
- between; this is only used with plural nouns, typically only if the number is two, e.g. “between two cars”. To say “between A and B”, the adposition needs to be detached, and is used thus: ro A xar B rr (this is irregular, yes)
- -[a]cal
- above, over (without contact; that’d be -[r]an)
- -[a]ral
- under, below, beneath; note: deatches as rašal
- -[a]nta
- in front of, before
- -[r]axca
- behind; after (in a procession or queue of some kind)
- -[a]nya
- through (literally – e.g. “drill through the wall” – or figuratively – e.g. “through the crowd”); across (a surface, like a town square or a meadow)
- -[a]ndo
- along; via
Temporal
These adpositions are very often detached, as temporal adverbials are often clauses or multi-word phrases. See detachment above. Those of the temporal adpositions which do not begin with -[r] or -[a] below are always detached.
- axce
- before, prior to another event
- ante
- after, following another event
- -[r]aye
- at, in, on (event in the past: “on last Sunday”, “in 1945”; or a habitual occurrence); during (also in the past: “during World War 2”, “during last week’s meeting”)
- -[r]an
- at, in, on; event in the future, e.g. “on (next) Sunday”, “the Maya say the world will end in 2012”
- -[a]ndo
- for (duration); “for three hours”
- -[r]axo
- ago, distance to an event in the past: “three months ago”
- -[r]avo
- in, distance to a future event: “in two hours”, “three years from now”
- naxro
- since, start point of ongoing or lengthy event; “he’s been alive since 1989”
- vašer
- until, end point of ongoing or lengthy event; “I’m working until 5 PM”
Other
- -[r]öll
- with (company)
- -[r]e
- with (instrument; “he hit the man with the bat”)
- acc.-[r]e
- with (equipped with; possessing; “the man with the hat”); note: applied to the accusative!
- -[r]agi
- towards (figuratively), “be nice towards strangers”; for the benefit/sake of, “I did this for you!”
- -[r]aŋ
- about (describing content; “a book about tea”); regarding, concerning; in the matter of
- -[r]er
- without
- -[r]el
- as, being; describing a noun as a state, e.g. “the transsexual man looks good as a female” or “ever considered a life as a normal person?”; phrases using this adposition can almost always be replaced with some variation of the phrase involving “to be” instead
- -[a]ndo
- in ‹language› – note that this adposition can be modified by acat (“to ‹language›”) and aco (“from ‹language›”), which are only used in the context of translations
- -[r]aþ
- this adpositions has no direct translation in English. It changes the way the subject of the sentence focuses on the object, and can be seen as a sort of replacement of the accusative case: for example, aš means “to see” if used with a simple accusative object, but with this adposition would rather translate to “look at” – the latter indicates that the subject is actively focusing on the visual input of whatever the subject is looking at, rather than merely acknowledging that he/she is receiving visual information of something. Similarly, it’s more than possible to hear that someone is talking without actually listening to what they’re saying. The verb is commonly in positive volition in this usage.
- This adposition is sometimes also used as a general-purpose adposition when no other would seem to fit, when you’re not really expressing any special relationship between things, e.g. “to wait for something”, “to aim for/at something”.
- Finally, it is used in certain grammatical constructions as an auxiliary direct object, functioning as a replacement for the accusative case. For instance, the causative suffix -as applied to eš (“to eat”) means something like “to make smn eat” or “to forcefeed”; in sentences involving this word, the accusative would be used to denote the person who is [forced into] eating, whereas -[r]aþ is for whatever is being eaten. An example follows.
- See more under derivation.
