McKenzie - Ablative - Locative Transfer

J.
Linguistics 14 (1978) 129-375 Printed in Great Britain
Ablative-locative transfers and their relevance for

the theory of case-grammar
J. LACHLAN MACKENZIE
Department of English Language and Literature,
Free University of Amsterdam
(Received 1 November 1977)
1. T H R E E DICHOTOMIZATIONS OF THE THREE LOCATIONAL CASE

CATEGORIES
It has been suggested by various proponents of case-grammar that locational and

directional expressions are not distinct in underlying structure and that the
interpretation of such expressions and, where relevant, the selection of the pre-
position that is to occur in such expressions are determined by properties of the
verb on which each expression is dependent.1 Fillmore (1968: 25) writes:
There is a certain amount of evidence. . . that locational and directional
expressions do not contrast but are superficial differences determined either
by the constituent structure or by the character of the associated verb.
The reference to constituent structure is motivated by the observation that place-
expressions occurring 'outside the VP', those which Chomsky (1965: 101)
identifies as Verb Phrase Complements, are necessarily locational rather than
directional:
(1) John washes his car in the garage
(2) *John washes his car to the garage
whereas place-expressions occurring 'inside the VP' (Chomsky's Verb Comple-
ments) may be either locational or directional:
(3) John keeps his car in the garage
(4) John drives his car into the garage.
The criterion which Fillmore employs for distinguishing between locational and
directional expressions is 'the movement or non-movement character of the
associated verb' (Fillmore, 1968: 26).
Fillmore (1968) does not discuss those expressions which indicate the source
rather than the goal of movement, although this is remedied in Fillmore (1971),
[1] M'- thanks go to Professor George Anderson, Dr John Anderson, Ya'akov Amit and
George Davidson, and above all to Professor Peter Matthews, for helpful suggestions
given during the preparation of this paper; they are responsible for none of its short-
comings.
129
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where three cases relating to place are postulated: Location, Goal and Source.
Anderson (1971: 119) also distinguishes between three types of place-expression,
locative, allative ( = goal) and ablative ( = source). He notes that:
There exists a not inconsiderable overlap in the 'prepositional' forms that
manifest the allative and the 'static' locative in English. . . and other languages
(Anderson, 1971: 119).
He also observes the implicational relations holding between the following pairs
of sentences:
(5a) He has come here
(5b) He is here (now/already)
(6a) He has gone to London
(6b) He is in London (now/already)
(7a) He has come here from London
(7b) He is not in London
(8a) He has gone from here to London
(8b) He is not here.
There are thus relations of implication between allative and positive locative
predications, since (5a) implies (5b) and (6a) implies (6b); and between ablative
and negative locative predications, since (7a) implies (7b) and (8a) implies (8b).
This gives further justification for positing a closer relation between the locative
and allative case categories than between locative and ablative, since the latter
involves an additional feature of negation. Anderson's formalization of these
observations is as follows: he proposes that verbs which are classified as
[+dynamic] (roughly, movement verbs)2 take an obligatory ablative in underlying
structure and that a VP-internal ('strongly selected') locative which co-occurs
with an ablative be interpreted as an allative and realized by means of one of the
appropriate set of prepositions. The obligatory ablative may be optionally deleted,
as in the derivation of (4) above, but its presence in underlying structure guaran-
tees the realization of underlying in the garage as into the garage. Thus the dicho-
tomization of the three major types of place-expression that is favoured by
Anderson may be represented by Table 1.
There is an alternative dichotomization, which is discussed by Lyons (1968:
300):
The most general distinction to be recognized within the 'local' functions of
the cases is locative vs. directional ('in/at' v. 'to' or 'from'). . . the distinction
between 'to' and 'from' is a secondary division within 'directional'. The
[2] These are subsequently renamed 'directional' in order to include the non-dynamic uses
of such verbs as stretch in examples like The fog stretched from London to Brighton (cf.
Anderson, 1971: 124-125).
130
ABLATIVE-LOCATIVE TRANSFERS
loc
abl
all
Table i.
Dichotomization of type A.
opposition of 'locative' and 'directional' may be regarded as a particular

manifestation of a more general distinction between static and dynamic.
This dichotomization of case categories may be represented by Table 2. There
would, of course, be no reason why these dichotomizations should not co-exist in
the theory of case-relations, since each is established on the basis of different
observations - indeed, Anderson (1976), while not abandoning type A, proposes
a formalism embodying the type B dichotomization - were it not for two im-
portant developments in the theory of case-grammar.
all
loc
abl
Table 2.
Dichotomization of type B.
The first of these is the proposal made by Anderson (1971) that locative and
ablative be considered as 'meta-cases', i.e. as the two case-categories to which all
others are reducible. This proposal ascribes central importance in the theory of
grammar to the dichotomy shown in Table 1 (type A) as against the [ ± dynamic]
distinction (type B), which is 'relegated', in Anderson's theory, to the status of a
feature. If the former distinction is to be made the foundation-stone of case-
grammar, there will have to be powerful evidence for the well-foundedness of
the locative-ablative dichotomy.
The second claim, also made by Anderson (in the course of a recent seminar on
localism held in the Department of Linguistics, University of Edinburgh, 1975)
is that the locative-ablative dichotomy is not only 'semantically natural', in as
much as it is justified by implicational relations of the type discussed above, but
that languages will always distinguish morpho-syntactically between agent/
source (abl) and patient/goal (loc). This latter claim I will refer to as the 'lexical
naturalness hypothesis'. Since semantic naturalness can be established only
through examination of data, i.e. by invoking lexical naturalness, exceptions to

the lexical naturalness hypothesis will simultaneously constitute violations of
semantic naturalness. Hence the importance of the lexical naturalness hypo-
thesis. From this hypothesis flows a further hypothesis that a language will
naturally associate items which are semantically similar with respect to the abla-
tive-locative dichotomy and that any historical development whereby a form
realizing one case comes to realize another case will involve only items which are
on the same side of the dividing line and will in no case 'span the abyss'. This I
will refer to as the 'natural transfer hypothesis'. Thus, it is natural for the Ger-
man preposition von, originally indicating only spatial source, to come to mark
the agent in passive sentences; similarly, it is natural for the Spanish preposition
a, originally a preposition of goal, to have come to mark the patient of a transitive
verb (where the patient is human and definite). It would, however, be unnatural
for a morph with ablative meaning to come to realize locative meaning; indeed,
the natural transfer hypothesis predicts that this cannot happen. There is a
stronger version of the natural transfer hypothesis, which predicts that ablatives
will never syncretize with locatives (or allatives), i.e. that there will never be a
complete collapsing together of ablative and locative morphology; this I will
refer to as the 'natural syncretism hypothesis'.
In the following sections, I shall show that there are indeed several well-
attested instances of just such 'unnatural' transfers and syncretisms in various
Indo-European and non-Indo-European languages. In each of these languages,
there are phenomena which involve a close association of locative and ablative in
contrast to allative, ranging from transfer to syncretism; in other words, a
dichotomization of the type represented in Table 3. The fact that so many
languages have shown evidence of a type C dichotomization of the three major
kinds of place-expression suggests that it, too, may be lexically and therefore
loc
all
abl
Table 3.
Dichotomization of type C.
semantically natural. If we assume that type B (cf. Table 2) also has claims for
semantic naturalness, being based on the generally recognized static-dynamic
distinction, then all three dichotomizations may be classified as semantically
natural. The resultant theory of semantic naturalness would, however, be so
weak that no lexical naturalness hypothesis could be derived from it. It seems
132
preferable, therefore, to retain the notion of semantic naturalness proposed by

Anderson, and to study in what way exceptions to lexical naturalness may be
accommodated within the theory and what consequences they have for the theory.
2. PLACE-ADVERBS IN GERMANIC
2.1. Gothic, Old High German and Contemporary Standard German

In the oldest Germanic languages, the morphology of place-adverbs directly
reflects the tripartite locative-allative-ablative distinction. Thus, in Gothic,
locative is indicated by a suffix -a on non-pronominal and -r on pronominal
place-adverbs (inna 'inside', uta 'outside'; par 'there', hSr 'here'); 3 allative by -0
on non-pronominal and either -drS or -/> on pronominal place-adverbs (inn
'inside', tit 'outside'; hidri 'hither', aljap 'to somewhere else'); and ablative by
-Pr6, but sometimes also -ana on non-pronominals (innaprd or innana 'from
inside', utaprd or utana 'from outside'; paprd 'thence', aljaprd 'from elsewhere').
Loc All Abl
THERE dar dara or darot dannana

HERE hiar hera or herdt hinana
WHERE hwar hwara or hwardt wannana
INSIDE inne in innana

OUTSIDE uê U5^ U7tana
ABOVE obe *ob obana
BELOW nidare nidar nidana
IN FRONT fore or forn forn forna
BEHIND *hindare *hindar hindana
EAST 6stert ostar dstana
WEST westerhalb westar westana
NORTH nordert *nordar nordana
SOUTH sundert sundar sundana
HOME heime heim heimana
Table 4.
OHG place-adverbs.
[3] Data are from Braune (1961). The term 'pronominal adverb' is designed to cover deictic
place-adverbs (cf. English here, there, thither, etc.) and also interrogative place-adverbs
(cf. English where, whither, etc.).
133
A similar situation holds in Old High German (see Table 4), where the following
generalizations pertain:
Locative pronominal: -r
Locative non-pronominal: -V (most frequently -e, but also -a, -0, -i)
Allative pronominal: -r-a or -r-6t
Allative non-pronominal: -0
Ablative pronominal: -nn-ana
Ablative non-pronominal: -ana or -andn.
It is instructive to compare Table 4 with Table 5, which shows the expression
of the same semantic range in Contemporary Standard German (CSG). In
CSG, the morphology is in one-to-one relation with a type B dichotomization:
allative and ablative are distinguished, by the prepositions nach and von res-
pectively, from the morphologically unmarked locative. In the case of the pronomi-
nal adverbs, this is achieved by the suffixation of -hin (from OHG hinana 'hence')
for the allative and -her (from OHG hera 'hither') for the ablative; the non-pro-
nominals are either partially, or, in the case of the four points of the compass, fully
Loc All Abl
THERE f dort \ fdort\ C dort \

< , > hin < , > her
\da / \ d a
J
\da /
HERE hier hierhin hierher
WHERE wo wohin wo her
INSIDE innen nach innen von innen

OUTSIDE aussen nach aussen von aussen
ABOVE oben nach oben von oben
BELOW unten nach unten von unten
IN FRONT vorn nach vorn von vorn
BEHIND hinten nach hinten von hinten
EAST im Osten nach Osten von Osten
WEST im Westen nach Westen von Westen
NORTH im Norden nach Norden von Norden
SOUTH im Siiden nach Siiden von Siiden
HOME f daheim "\ f heim "\ von zu Hause
^ zu Hause J \^ nach Hause J
Table 5.
CSG place-adverbs.
134
recategorized as nouns, and are again marked as allative and ablative by the pre-
positions nach and von respectively. Although innen, aussen, etc., are now
morphologically simple,4 they are historically complex, the -en desinence deriving
from the ablative suffix -ana of OHG (Lockwood, 1968: 50). It is revealing to
examine the steps by which -ana came to signal locativity rather than ablativity.
Table 4 offers a rather idealized, 'tidy' representation of the system of place-
adverbs in OHG. In fact, many transfers of meaning had taken place before the
Item Ablative use Locative use Allative use

attested? attested? attested?
Group I
dannana YES NO NO
hinana YES NO NO
wannana YES NO NO
Group II
innana NO YES YES
uz,ana YES YES YES
obana YES YES NO
nidana NO YES NO
forna YES YES YES
hindana NO YES, as a locative NO
time-adverb:
'afterwards'
Group III
6stana "^
westana 1
YES NO NO
nordana |
sundana J
Group IV
heimana YES NO NO
Table 6.
Uses of place-adverbs with ablative form in OHG.
[4] Note, however, that -en may be analysed as a partially productive locative suffix in the
light of such relatively recent forms as drtiben 'on the other side', the analogously formed
liiiben 'on this side', and dorten 'there'. (See Lockwood, 1968: 50.)
period recognized by scholars as that of OHG (c. 800-1100) and further changes
took place during that period. These involved in every case but one -1/3 is
attested as locative ( = usie) as well as allative - the adoption of locative or allative
meaning by the ablative form. The 'true' picture is shown in Table 6, which
indicates the function of each of the forms listed as ablative in Table 4.
All of Group I have reflexes in CSG, although they strike the native speaker as
obsolescent or poetical. They occur as ablatives only, and necessarily in combina-
tion with von 'from': von dannen 'thence', von wannen 'whence', and von hinnen
'hence'. Hinana has, however, another reflex in CSG, hin, which has the sense
'from the current location of the speaker'; and, as a corollary of this ablative
sense, hin has developed the allative sense 'to a location which is not that of the
speaker'. Group II survive in CSG as locative place-adverbs, nidana, however,
only in hienieden 'here below, on earth (as opposed to heaven)'. Group III
survive as masculine (locative) nouns (Norden 'North', Osten 'East', etc.) which
have largely, but not entirely, ousted the forms derived from the original locative
root (Nord, Ost, etc.). The form cited in Group IV has disappeared from the
language; ablativity must be expressed by von zu Hause (literally 'from at
home').
Summarizing Table 6, one observes that Group I entirely resisted transfers
from ablative to locative; that Groups III and IV retained the original OHG
system (although, as regards Group III, it was lost in Middle High German);
and that Group II was in a state of flux during the OHG period, all the forms
being attested with locative sense, with some (uâna, obana and forna) retaining
an ablative sense and the others (innana, nidana and hindana) losing their abla-
Language-stage Ablative Locative
1 -ana -e
2 -ana -ana or -e
3 (fona)... -ana -ana or -e
4 fona . . . -ana -ana or -e
5 fona . . . -ana -ana

CSG von . . . -en -en
Table 7.
The ablative-locative syncretism in German place-adverbs.
136
tive sense. There is thus clear evidence to suggest that a syncretism took place
among certain German place-adverbs, whereby the originally unambiguous
ablative form came to coexist with and ultimately supersede the original locative
form. Table 7 re-creates the succession of steps by which this process occurred.
Language-stage 1 (LSi) represents the situation in Groups I, III and IV in
the OHG period. LS2 and LS3 show the actual process of syncretism, the
bracketed fona being the preposition that was optionally employed to distinguish
ablative from locative, in the same way as English whence is optionally preceded
by from to reinforce its ablative meaning. According to Table 6, uâna, obana and
forna reached LS2 in OHG times. By LS4, ablative is always distinguished from
locative, which is now realized by one of two forms. According to Table 6,
innana, nidana and hindana reached this stage in the OHG period. By LS5,
which is equivalent to CSG, the system has been restabilized on an 'analytic'
rather than 'synthetic' basis.
It may be objected that it is misguided to seek a semantic explanation for the
syncretism of ablative and locative place-adverbs in German and that phono-
logical factors should be invoked to account for the replacement of a synthetic
with an analytic system. It is true, to a limited extent in OHG, but to a marked
extent in Middle High German (MHG), that the suffixes, being unstressed, fell
victim to considerable reduction:
OHG /-ana/ > MHG /-an/ > CSG /-N/
OHG /-V/ > MHG /-0/ > CSG /-0/
where /V/ represents a vowel and /N/ a syllabic nasal whose place of articula-
tion depends on that of the preceding consonant: innen pmn]; oben [?obm].
It might well be argued that the prepositions nach and von were introduced to
compensate for the loss of distinctiveness and that the ablative suffix was chosen
as basic being phonologically 'heavier', with three segments rather than one
(locative) or none (allative). This argument would carry conviction, were it not
that processes analogous to those observed in the history of German have also
taken place in other Germanic languages where there has been no reduction of the
suffixes. Such a language is Faroese, to which I shall now turn.
2.2. Faroese
In Faroese, as in Icelandic, the Proto-Germanic tripartition of the morphology of
locative, allative and ablative place-adverbs is upheld to this day. The suffixes on
non-pronominal place-adverbs are -i, -0, and -an respectively, as they were in
Old Icelandic. See (9) to (11) and Table 8 (data from Lockwood, 1955).
(9) Hvussu liva tit harnor5*uri?
how live you there-north-loc
'How are you getting on up there in the North?'
137
(10) Eg fari su9ur til Havnar

I go south to Torshavn
'I'm going south to Torshavn'
( n ) Hann er eystan
he is east-abl
'The wind is blowing from the East'.
Loc All Abl
THERE har hagar ha9ani

HERE her higar hi5ani
WHERE hvar hvar hvaQani
INSIDE inni inn innan

OUTSIDE uti lit uttan
ABOVE uppi upp oman
BELOW niQri ni9ur niQan
IN FRONT frammi fram framman
BEHIND afturi aftur aftan
EAST eysturi eystur eystan
WEST vesturi vestur vestan
NORTH norOuri nor5(ur) nor5an
SOUTH suduri sudur sunnan
HOME heima heim heiman
Table 8.
Faroese place-adverbs.
There are various circumstances under which ablative forms are used with
locative meaning. Consider the following three aspects of Faroese grammar.
(a) All locative forms in -i, except the pronominal adverbs, have partial syno-
nyms in a combination of the ablative form in -an plus -fyri (which, as an inde-
pendent morph, occurs as a preposition glossed as 'for', 'before', 'in front o f ) :
(12a) Bornini spaela uti
(12b) Bornini spsela uttanfyri
(12c) Bernini spsela fyri uttan
children-the play outside
'The children are playing outside'
138
(12a) is understood as 'The children are playing outside (as opposed to inside)',
whereas (12b) and (12c) are interpreted as 'The children are playing outside a
specific place (whose identity is retrievable from the context)'.5 (12c) is rather
archaic, (12b) being preferable in everyday usage; both are, however, un-
ambiguously locative in sense rather than ablative, despite their morphology. It
is interesting to consider Lockwood's remark (1950: 102) that 'Faroese people
often recall that as young children they thought nibanfyri ("below") was "above"
after the analogy of niban ("from below", "upwards").' Consider, too, that the
ablative form is also present in the locative construction Adv + vert — vib — NP
'a little (outside, etc.) NP' (e.g. uttanvert vib NP 'a little outside NP'; nidanvert
vib NP 'a little below NP').
(b) Several adverbs with ablative form may be used as prepositions. Whereas
some of these prepositions retain a basically ablative meaning, as for example
undan ('from underneath') - cf. (13) and (14):
(13) Stolurin glei9 undan honum
chair-the slipped under-abl him
'The chair slipped from under him'
(14) Hon s6par undan kunni
she sweeps under-abl cow-the
'She is sweeping out the byre'
- others, such as uttan and innan, have a locative meaning:
(15) Hon sa born sfni uttan um seg
she saw children her out around herself
'She saw her children round about her'
(16) Innan atta dagar
inside eight days
'Within eight days'
(17) Uttandura 'outdoors'
Uttanhysis 'out of the house'
Uttangards 'outside the fence'
Innantanna 'within one's teeth' (used for muttering to oneself)
Innan veggja 'within the wall'.
There are also some uses of undan (in the sense 'before') for which it is very
difficult to ascertain whether they are to be classed as ablative or locative. These
are all cases where the two entities related by the preposition undan are described
as being in motion along the same 'path', spatial or abstract, and retain the same
relative position with respect to each other. An example is (18), which could be
used to describe a procession led by Simon:
[5] I am grateful to Dr Michael Barnes (personal communication) for clarifying the mean-
ing of these sentences to me.
139
(18) Si'mun gekk undan

Simon went before
'Simon walked in front'
where Simon clearly goes 'away from' the rest of the procession, but then retains
his position (location) ahead of the others as they follow after. Consider also
(19):
(19) Tey doyflu hvort undan oflrum
they died each before other
'They died one after the other'
where the first person to die may again be said to have moved 'away from' the
other, although the second person follows the same 'path'. In English, in front
relates two entities with respect to their spatial location, and before relates two
events or situations with respect to their location in time. The Faroese trans-
lational equivalent of both in front and before, in such 'processional' environments,
is undan, which may be analysed either as a locative, as is suggested by its equi-
valence to English locative prepositions, or as an ablative, as is suggested by its
morphology. To analyse it as an ablative is, however, to identify its meaning with
what is merely an entailment of 'being in front', namely that before one can be in
front of a procession, one has first to go away from the rest of that procession. I
should therefore prefer to analyse such uses of undan as locative rather than
ablative, and thus to regard them as a further example of the meaning transfer
under discussion.
(c) Another indication that -an, by itself, no longer unambiguously signals

ablativity may be seen in the fact that all non-pronominal ablative place-adverbs
may take the suffix -ifrd. Ifrd otherwise functions as a preposition, as in Langt
ifrd til 'Far from it' (as an emphatic denial). Thus one might say of a palin-
dromic name:
(20) Navnid er ta9 sama um tit lesa tad aftanifra ella frammani'fra
name-the is the same whether you read that behind-abl-from or front-
abl-from
'The name is the same whether you read it forwards or backwards'.
In as much as an ablative preposition may be optionally employed to reinforce
the ablative meaning of a suffix which is no longer an unequivocal marker of
ablativity, there is a certain similarity between contemporary Faroese and LS3
of the evolution postulated for German in Table 7 above (§ 2.1).
There are thus several indications that Faroese shows initial signs of the same
type of ablative-locative merger as took place in the development of German.
Similar evidence could have been drawn from Icelandic, which, in some
140
respects, seems to have gone rather further than Faroese: for example, utan,
originally ablative, 'from outside', may in contemporary Icelandic be both
locative, as in vera utan 'be abroad', and also allative, as in fara utan 'go abroad'.
It is important to notice that in neither language has there been a reduction in the
phonological form of the suffixes, so that an explanation will have to be sought
within the semantic and morphological systems formed by place-adverbs. Before
looking for an explanation for this 'semantically unnatural' transfer of sense, let
us briefly consider relevant data from other language-families.
3. PLACE ADVERBS IN LATIN AND THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES
3.1. Latin
A large number of Classical Latin (CL) adverbs and prepositions with locative
meaning have a form which betrays an ablative origin. In other words, forms
which, at an earlier stage in the development of the language, had ablative mean-
ing have come to take on locative meaning and in many cases to oust the original
locative form. Sturtevant (1932: 3), writing about Hittite grammar, gives
recognition to this observation:
By the semantic shift that is so common in Latin (ab laeva 'on the left',
undique 'on all sides', etc.) the Hitt. [sic] ablative sometimes denotes place
where and time when.
I shall distinguish four types of adverb with locative meaning but historically
ablative morphology.
(a) Adverbs in -tus: the suffix -tus is found not only on place-adverbs but also
appended to roots which otherwise form the stem of nouns: funditus 'from the
bottom' (d.fundus 'bottom'); caelitus 'from heaven' (cf. caelum 'heaven'). Here
the meaning is always ablative. The suffix is cognate with Sanskrit -tas, which,
according to Burrow (1973: 279), may only have ablative meaning (but see § 5
below), and with Greek -ros (see § 4 below). It is generally agreed that the suffix
has Indo-European origins and that it originally signalled ablativity. There are,
however, two place-adverbs in Latin, intus and sub tus, which have locative, not
ablative meaning. Intus is attested as 'from inside' in early CL (Plautus), but,
in CL proper, is entirely locative, although there are also examples of allative
usage. Subtus is attested as locative only.
(b) Adverbs in -im: this suffix is taken by Lejeune (1939: 394) to derive from
an extinct adverb *im 'thence', discernible in in-de 'thence', ex-im 'thence,
thenceforth', h-in-c 'hence', and, by analogical extension, in ill-im 'thence
(remote)', ist-im 'thence (proximate)'. It also occurs in utr-im-que, which is
attested not only as 'from both sides', but also as 'on both sides': Acriter utrimque
141
pugndtum est 'The fighting was fierce on both sides'. Another example of an
adverb in -im with locative meaning is passim 'at different places'.
(c) Adverbs and prepositions in -a: such forms as intrd 'inside' and extra 'out-
side' are derived from the ablative singular feminine of adjectives, some of which
survive in CL; the adjectives are taken to modify a deleted noun parte 'part
direction':
intra 'inside' < *intera parte 'from the inner part'
extra 'outside' < *extera parte 'from the outer part'
supra 'above' <*supera parte 'from the upper part'
infra 'below' < *infera parte 'from the lower part'
citra 'on this side' < *citera parte 'from the part on this
side'
ultra 'on that side' < "ultera parte 'from the part on that
side'
(ab) dextra 'on the right' <*(ab) dextera parte 'from the right part'
(ab) laeva 'on the left' < * (ab) laeva parte 'from the left part'.
(d) Adverbs and prepositions in de- (for detailed discussion, see Savborg, 1941):
de is, in its spatial uses, an ablative preposition glossed as 'from' or 'down from'.
In CL, it could be preposed to certain locative adverbs and prepositions to
change them from locatives into ablatives, just as in English from may be put
before locative expressions to convert them into ablatives, as for example
desuper 'from above'. Desuper is, however, also attested as a locative preposition
('above'), and desub occurs most frequently as a locative ('below' rather than 'from
below'). This device was much more prevalent in Vulgar Latin (VL), which
contained such forms as de-intus, de-usque and de-retro. Evidence is scanty, but
these all appear to have had originally ablative meaning, but by the time their
reflexes start appearing in the earliest documents of the Romance languages, the
meaning is unequivocally locative.
Thus there is considerable evidence that meaning transfers of the type ob-
served in Germanic languages also took place in Latin, in one instance even
affecting the same item twice (*en-tos; CL intus; VL de-intus). Similar observa-
tions may be made for some of Latin's daughter-languages, French, Spanish and
Italian.
3.2. French
A considerable number of Modern French (ModF) adverbs and prepositions,
now exclusively locative in meaning, derive historically either from VL com-
pounds of the type discussed in § 3.1, i.e. de + adverb, or from later formations
of the same kind.
The preposition dans 'in' (Old French (OF) denz) is thought to derive from
142
VL de-intus 'from inside'; the corresponding locative adverb in ModF is dedans,
which is an OF formation that, one must presume, initially had ablative meaning,
being composed from de 'from' and denz 'in'. The ablative preposition and
adverb corresponding in ModF to dans and dedans is de dedans; this is a form
which testifies most eloquently to the recursive nature of the phenomenon with
which we are dealing.
The preposition and adverb derriere 'behind' derives from VL de-retro
'behind' or 'backwards'; the corresponding ablative is de derriere in ModF.
Similarly, OF jusque 'up to' (cf. ModF jusqu'a 'up to', 'until'), an allative, is
derived from VL de-usque, literally 'from up to', an unusual form which com-
bines ablative with allative and may be an analogical formation. Other formations
dating from the early stages of the evolution of French are:
ModF devant 'before' < de + avant
dehors 'outside' < de + hors
dessus 'above' < de + sus
dessous 'underneath' < de + sous
deca 'on this side' < de + ca
dela 'on that side' < de + la
OF dejoste 'beside' < de+joste
detres 'behind' < de + tres.
Another form to lose its ablativity is OF ont 'where', 'whence' from CL unde
'whence': cf. such phrases as sur la vote par ont Us vont 'on the path along which
they are going', where the meaning is clearly locative. Thus, throughout the
adverbial and prepositional system of French, there are many forms which now
have locative meaning, but which must be presumed to have had ablative meaning
at an earlier stage of the language's development. It is highly implausible to
suggest that the preposing of de had no semantic effect: it must be supposed,
given that OF sus 'above' was locative, that de sus was originally interpreted as
ablative, in the same way as the ModF speaker interprets de dessus as ablative.
There is thus considerable evidence from French place-adverbs and place-
prepositions for a transfer of meaning from ablative to locative.
3.3. Spanish
Just as in French, several Spanish place-adverbs with locative meaning have a
form which betrays an ablative origin. The most striking example is the locative-
allative interrogative adverb donde 'where', which is derived from VL de-unde
'from-whence'; it would therefore appear that the ablative-locative transfer has
occurred twice in the derivation of this item. Other examples are:
dentro 'inside' < VL de intro 'from inside'
defuera 'outside' < VL de foras 'from outdoors'
J- LACHLAN MACKENZIE
debajo 'underneath' < VL de basso 'from low'

delante 'in front' < VL de in-ante 'from in-before'
detras 'behind' < VL de trans 'from across'
despues 'afterwards' < VL de post 'from after'.
3.4. Italian
A similar situation prevails in Italian, for which an analogous list of etymological
relations may be set up:
dentro 'inside' < VL de intro 'from inside'
disotto 'underneath < VL de subtus 'from underneath
davanti 'in front' < VL de ab-ante 'from from-before'
dinanzi 'in front' < VL de in-antea 'from in-before'
dietro 'behind' < VL de retro 'from behind'
dopo 'after' < VL de post 'from after"
dove 'where' < VL de ubi 'from where'.
It is also interesting to note that, with dietro, the ablative di dietro may be used in
place of the simple form in locative contexts:
(21) Tu siediti davanti e io mi sieder6 (di) dietro
you seat-yourself in-front and I me seat-fut. (from) behind
'You sit in the front (sc. of the car) and I'll sit behind'.
To my knowledge, this phenomenon is limited to the one adverb dietro, a fact
for which I have no explanation.
4. PLACE-ADVERBS IN ANCIENT GREEK
One finds in Greek a small number of locative adverbs with morphology which is
otherwise indicative of ablativity. The suffixes in question are -dev and -TOS.
Such forms as ovpavoodev 'from heaven' and TeXoadev 'from afar' are examples
of the (historically older) ablative force of -dev. In Ionic and Attic, however, the
following forms all have locative meaning, a fact which strongly suggests a
transfer from ablative to locative:
Zfiwpoo-dev 'in front o f
omodev 'behind'
evroodev 'within'
'outside'.
The structure of the last two suggests a double transfer, since evros 'within' and
eKTos 'outside' are also found, with locative meaning, despite the -TO? suffix,
which is historically ablative (cf. § 3.1 above).
For detailed discussion of place-adverbs in Greek, see Lejeune (1939).
144
5. PLACE-ADVERBS IN SANSKRIT
The Sanskrit cognate of Greek -TO? and Latin -tus is -tas, and is in most cases
ablative in meaning:
itas 'from here'
tatas 'from there'
hrttas 'from the heart'.
There are, however, two examples to which Burrow (1973: 167) gives an
exclusively locative gloss:
agratas 'in front'
sarvatas 'on all sides'.
There is another termination -tat (a contamination of -tas with the ablative case-
ending on thematic stems, -at) which again is ablative in almost all cases, e.g.:
udaktat 'from above'
praktat 'from in front'.
Two of these forms, while preserving ablative meaning in appropriate contexts,
may, however, also occur as locatives:
adhastat 'from beneath' or 'beneath'
purastat 'from in front' or 'in front'.
Moreover, two of these forms function as exclusively locative prepositions:
pa&cat 'behind'
parastat 'beyond'.
There is thus evidence of a small number of ablative-locative transfers in San-
skrit.
6. PLACE-ADVERBS IN SLAVONIC LANGUAGES
6.I. Old Slavonic

Lejeune (1939: 392) points out that Old Slavonic kgdu, unlike all other forms in
-gdu, which were exclusively ablative (cf. tqdu 'thence', sJQdu 'hence', vunqdu
'from outside'), could take on locative and allative meaning:
. . . kqdu a pu etre employe pour indiquer non seulement 'de quel c6te' Ton
vient, mais aussi 'de quel c6te' Ton se trouve, 'de quel c6t6' Ton se dirige: des le
vieux slave (ou kqdu traduit deja 61a Troiccs 660O ['by which route' JLM]), on
voit s'amorcer une Evolution qui se poursuivra dans les langues modernes et
aboutira a une rdpartition entre les types oti kqdu 'irdeev' ['thence' JLM] et
145
kgdu 'irij' ['there' JLM]. Mais, a l'origine, kgdu rOpond, pour le sens, a skr.
kutak, a gr. noOev, a lat. wide.
This is an isolated, but undoubted example of the ablative-locative transfer under
discussion.
6.2. Serbo-Croatian
Meillet and Vaillant (1924: 142-143) observe that, in Serbo-Croatian:
On a une serie de propositions composees avec iz-: izmedu 'd'entre', iznad 'de
dessus', ispod 'de dessous', ispred 'de devant', iza (pour iz-za) 'de derriere',
qui se construisent avec le gOnitif: bezi (bjezi) Mdrko hpred rbditelja 'Marko
fuit de devant son pere'; jedan izmedu njih odgovori Tun d'entre eux a rOpon-
du\ II arrive que ces prepositions composOes ne signifient rien de plus que les
propositions simples, 'entre', 'au-dessus de', etc.
In terms of case-grammar, Meillet and Vaillant are, in their last sentence, recog-
nizing an ongoing transfer of locative meaning to ablative forms. It is of great
interest that Bugarski (1973) no longer treats such prepositions as iznad and
ispod as ablative, but as locative in meaning. He claims that, in Serbo-Croatian,
the distinction between iznad and nad is equivalent to that between above and
over in English and that there is a correspondence between ispod and pod and
below and beneath respectively:
Iznad and nad, and ispod and pod, are far from being free variants. . . Iznad and
ispod refer to points on a real or imaginary scale and thus connote detachment;
nad and pod basically refer to actual or potential covering and thus connote
interrelation (Bugarski, 1973: 14).
It would appear, therefore, at least with respect to the forms iznad and ispod, that
a change of meaning from ablative to locative has taken place in the recent history
of Serbo-Croatian.
7. PLACE ADVERBS IN CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI HEBREW
A large number of Contemporary Israeli Hebrew adverbs and prepositions

manifest ablative morphology, being characterized by the prefix mi(j)- or
me-.6 This prefix occurs most frequently, however, in ablative contexts:
(22) Hajta le-David mexonit mij-Israel.
was to-David car from-Israel
'David had a car from Israel'
[6] Data gathered from a native speaker informant.
146
(23) Ha-ojev hitkarev mi-smol.
the-enemy approached from-left
'The enemy approached from the left1
(24) Hu hegi'ax mi-taxat ha-5ulxan
he emerged from-under the-table
'He emerged from under the table'
(25) Ha-zvuv af mi-ha-Sulxan
the-fly flew from-the-table
'The fly flew off the table'.
The morphological system underlying Hebrew adverbs and prepositions of
location may be represented as follows:
Locative: zero-marking
Allative: -a
Ablative: mi-
These markers are not found on all forms, but could plausibly be taken to be the
'basic system'. The largest class of exceptions to this schema is the set of forms
prefixed by mi- which are locative in sense. Consider tneaxo 'behind' and
milefanim 'in front' in (26) and (27):
(26) Hu nimtsa me-axor-ei ha-delet
he is-situated from-back-of the-door
'He is behind the door'
(27) Hu nimtsa mi-le-fanim
he is-situated from-to-front
'He is in front'.
Many of the forms are ambiguous out of context, for example:
mi-tsad ze
from-side demonstrative
'on or from this or that side*
mi kol ha-tsedadim
from every the-sides
'on or from all sides'.
Of particular interest are the following four pairs, and also the adverbs involving
the points of the compass.
(a) Al 'on' and meal 'above, over': whereas al is glossed 'on', me-al is never
equivalent to 'from on', although this reading was found in Biblical Hebrew. The
interpretation of al is 'contact with top-surface', that of me-al 'location in the
area contiguous with the top-surface, but not in contact with that surface':
(28) Ha-zvuv nimtsa al ha-§ulxan

the-fly is-situated on the-table
'The fly is on the table'
(29) Ha-zvuv nimtsa me-al ha-Sulxan
the-fly is-situated from-on the-table
'The fly is above the table'.
'From on', or 'off', is rendered simply by mi- (cf. (25) above), or by a circum-
locution, as in (30):
(30) Ha-zvuv af mi-mekom-o al ha-Sulxan
the-fly flew from-place-its on the-table
'The fly flew off the table'.
(b) Taxat and mitaxat 'under': whereas mi-taxat may be used as an ablative in
conjunction with a verb which incorporates the notion of 'movement from' (cf.
(24) above), it also competes with taxat as the locative form:
(31) Ha-jeled zoxel taxat ha-§ulxan
the-child crawled under the-table
'The child crawled about under the table'
(32) Ha-jeled zoxel mi-taxat la-s>ulxan [la = le + ha]
the child crawled from-under to-the-table
'The child crawled about under the table'.
Where the verb does not incorporate a meaning-component of ablativity, the
ablative form is neither mi-taxat nor *mi-mi-taxat le, but again involves a
circumlocution:
(33) Ha-jeled zoxel mi-mekom-o mi-taxat la-siulxan ha-xuts-a
the-child crawled from-place-its from-under to-the-table the-outside-
allative
'The child crawled out from under the table*.
That the WM-form is indeed a locative is further suggested by the fact that it
occurs after el 'to' to form the allative:
(34) Ha-jeled zoxel el mi-taxat la-§ulxan
the-child crawled to from-under to-the-table
'The child crawled under the table' (sc. from a position not under the
table).
(c) Xuts 'outside' andpnim 'inside': pnim corresponds, in its morphology, quite
closely to the schema set out above; xuts, on the other hand, is characterized by
ablative morphology in the locative sense:
148
(35) Ha-jeled nimtsa bi-fnim [bi + ha + pnim]
the-child is-situated at-the-inside
'The child is inside'
(36) Ha-jeled zav pnim-a
the-child went inside-allative
'The child went inside'
(37) Ha-jeled hitkarev mi-bi-fnim [mi + be + ha+pnim]
the-child approached from-at-the-inside
'The child approached from inside'
(38) Ha-jeled nimtsa mi-xuts
the-child is-situated from-outside
'The child is outside'
(39) Ha-jeled zav ha-xuts-a
the-child went the-outside-allative
'The child went outside'
(40) Ha-jeled hitkarev mi-ba-xuts [mi + be + ha + xuts]
the-child approached from-at-the-outside
'The child approached from outside'.
(d) Jamin 'right' and smol 'left': with neither of these forms is there a morpho-
logically unmarked locative: it is possible to use either the allative or the ablative
form with locative meaning:
(41a) Ha-sefer nimtsa jamin-a la-iulxan [le + ha+Sulxan]

the-book is-situated right-allative to-the-table
(41b) Ha-sefer nimtsa mi-jamin la-Sulxan
the-book is-situated from-right to-the-table
'The book is right of the table'
(42) Hu zav jamin-a
he went right-allative
'He went right'
(43) Ha-ojev hitkarev mi-jamin
the-enemy approached from-right
'The enemy approached from the right'.
Smol-a and mi-smol pattern in exactly the same way.
(e) Points of the compass: as v/ith jamin and smol, locative meaning is expressed
by either the ablative or the allative form:
(44a) Aberdin nimtsa tsafon-a le-Edinburg
Aberdeen is-situated north-allative to-Edinburgh
149
(44b) Aberdin nimtsa mi-tsafon le-Edinburg

Aberdeen is-situated from-North to-Edinburgh
'Aberdeen is north of Edinburgh'
(45) Hu zav tsafon-a
he went north-allative
'He went north'
(46) Ha-ojev hitkarev mi-tsafon
the-enemy approached from-north
'The enemy approached from the North'.
Again, the other three points of the compass, darom 'south', mizrax 'east' and
ma'arav 'west', pattern similarly.
Thus Contemporary Israeli Hebrew is a rich source of ablative-locative
transfers among adverbs and prepositions of place.
8. P R E P O S I T I O N S IN TWO AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES
8.1. Fijian
In Fijian (cf. Milner, 1956), there are three particles of place, which correspond
directly to the three locational cases discussed in § 1 above:
Locative: e {enavale 'in the house')
Allative: ki {ki na vale 'to the house')
Ablative: mat (mai na vale 'from the house')
Where the nominal following the particle is used to refer to an entity distant from
the speaker, locative is realized as mat, so that mai vale may be interpreted either
as 'from home' or, if the speaker is himself away from home, as 'at home'.
Similarly, when eliciting locative information, the speaker of Fijian must choose
between evei 'where' and tnaivei 'where, whence'; with the former, the speaker
assumes that the entity is likely to be near at hand, whereas with the latter, the
assumption is that it is distant:
(47) E tiko evei na nona vale?
is situated where the his house
'Where is his house?' (Likelihood: somewhere near)
(48) Ko a kunea maivei?
did you find whence
'Where did you find it?' (Likelihood: somewhere far off)
(49) Erau sa lako maivei?
they have come from-where
'Where have they come from?'
Fijian deictic adverbs are characterized by a three-way distinction of the type
^-v^CASE
PERSON ^ s ^ locative allative ablative
I e ke ki ke mai ke
2 e keri ki keri mai keri
3 e kea ki kea mai kea

mai kea
Table g
Fijian deictic adverbs
also found in Latin, Spanish, Turkish, etc., whereby each category corresponds
to a person of the pronominal system (see Table 9). Again, mai competes with e
where distance from the speaker is involved; Milner (1956: 49) glosses e ked as
'over there (near)' and mai ked as 'over there (far)' suggesting that the possibility
of using the ablative form with locative meaning makes available a fourth locative
deictic category.
8.2. Sonsorol-Tobi
In the language of Sonsorol-Tobi (cf. Capell, 1969), there is a class of forms
corresponding to prepositions in West-European languages:
Locative: ni
Allative: 0
Ablative: vie or ifi (ri)
Me is used before a noun denoting a place, whereas ifi (ri) - where optional ri is
equivalent to English 'of - occurs before a noun denoting a person or thing:
(50) Xo bwito me i: a?
you come from where
'Where do you come from?'
(51) Xo bwe yarukumemi ifi tama: a
you purposive-marker rescue-us from evil
'Deliver us from evil'.
According to Capell (1969: 74, 75), ni is 'of less general use' and 'ifi ri as against
ifi, is "at", as a general rule'. Among Capell's examples are ifi ri ileile 'at the end',
and xariwa rayo ra ifi ri matatn, which he glosses as 'chase the flies from your face
(they are "at" it now)'. The allative is 'expressed without any prepositions'
(Capell, 1969: 73), but ifi ri can also carry allative meaning:
(52) I bwe soje me iolom i da ra ifi ri neirai

I purposive-marker go from with-you I consecutive-marker go from of
mother
'I will go from you to my mother'.
Here, then, is yet another language in which an ablative marker occurs in locative
and allative expressions.
9. CONCLUSIONS
In §§ 2-8,1 have adduced evidence from five branches of the Indo-European

language-family and from two non-Indo-European languages for ablative-
locative transfers among the adverbs and prepositions denoting spatial location.
The relevance of this phenomenon for case-grammar depends crucially on the
interpretation which is placed upon its occurrence. Considering the fact that the
adoption of locative meaning by ablative forms has been shown to take place at
different times in history and in languages as geographically separated as Fijian
and Faroese, and that the change is potentially iterative, that is, can affect the
same item several times (cf. the derivation of ModF dedans), one might be led
to postulate that it is lexically natural and that a type C dichotomization of case-
categories should be adopted (cf. § 1 above). This would have dramatic reper-
cussions on the theory of case-grammar, in particular on Anderson's localist
theory of language, which takes locative and ablative to be antithetical notions.
Anderson (1971: 120) suggests that there is an 'antonymic relation... between
loc and abl' and ascribes fundamental significance to this opposition. If all three
dichotomies discussed in § 1 were taken to be equally natural, a return would
have to be made to a tripartite classification of spatial cases of the type implicit in
Fillmore (1971), representable as Table 10. The classification of case-categories
in Table 10 would make no predictions about the relative naturalness of transfers
since all are equally natural.
Table 10
Tripartite classification - type D.
An alternative would be to renounce the quest for a semantic account of the

phenomenon and to 'relegate' the matter to the level of morphology; specifically,
152
by proposing an explanation in terms of morphological markedness. Unfor-
tunately, it appears impossible to give a unitary explanation in morphological
terms on the basis of the data examined above. In the older stages of Germanic,
the allative was in general the least marked member of the set locative-allative-
ablative, and the ablative generally the most marked (cf. § 2.1). One may there-
fore propose that in German there took place a conflation of the two most marked
members of the set, locative and ablative, yielding a pair (loc, abl), both realized
by -an in opposition to allative, realized by -0. Conflations of this type are,
morphologically, quite natural, in that they result in a simplification of marked-
ness relations. One may then presume that this new opposition conflicted with
semantic naturalness (of the uncontroversial types A and B) and was replaced
with a new contrast loc vs. (all, abl) in CSG, the locative being distinguished
from the other two in lacking a preposition and the allative and the abla-
tive being distinguished from each other by the choice of preposition. This
explanation will not, however, account for the situation in other languages,
particularly in those where the locative is no more marked, morphologically, than
the allative or indeed where locative and allative are realized by the same form
(cf. especially the contemporary Romance languages). In such languages the
morphological system directly reflects the type A dichotomization which Ander-
son assumes to be fundamental; it is therefore particularly strange that such
languages, whose systems could be expected to be stable, are in fact subject to
the same type of change as the languages in which the morphology of the place-
adverb system is not in accord with semantic naturalness.
The claim that 'compensation for phonological reduction' is responsible for
actuating the adoption of locative meaning by ablative forms was rejected in § 2.2
above on the grounds that Faroese and Icelandic show signs of the transfer, but
no reduction in the relevant affixes. It is, however, undeniable that, in the case
of the Indo-European languages discussed, the developments exemplified do fit
into the general framework of the frequently observed tendency of those lan-
guages to adopt an 'analytic' structure as the unstressed affixes characterizing the
'synthetic' structure suffer reduction. Even though this tendency may not in
itself account for the ablative-locative transfer, it could be argued that the re-
structuring of the place-adverb system did, in each case, bring it into line with an
ongoing drift from synthetic to analytic. This does not explain, however, why it
was the ablative, the semantically most marked form, which came to exist
alongside or even replace the originally unmarked form, the locative, in the
reorganized system.
I would propose that a semantic explanation might be sought in those sen-
tences where ablative and locative meaning cannot be clearly distinguished. In
such sentences, there is potential confusion between location at the initial point
of movement and movement away from that point. Consider the Faroese expres-
sion (53):
153
(53) Faa mjolk undan kiinni

to-get milk under-abl cow-the
'to milk the cow'.
(53) may be interpreted either as 'to get milk under the cow' or as 'to get milk
from under the cow'. Note that both glosses may be used to refer to the same
action; they differ only in how that action is conceptualized. Similar remarks
apply for the interpretation of (14) above. Consider also that (11) above, in which
eystan is analysed as an ablative, is most naturally rendered in English as The
wind is in the East: English envisages the situation with relation to the POSITION of
its source, Faroese envisages the MOVEMENT away from that position. Similarly,
Faroese Knipa from undan bordinum (to-creep forwards under-abl table-the) is
naturally rendered in German as Unter dent Tisch hervorkriechen (under the table
forth-creep): again Faroese brings out the MOVEMENT and German the STARTING-
POINT. These examples constitute evidence that certain ablatives may be alterna-
tively conceptualized as locatives. My tentative suggestion is that the adoption
of locative meaning by ablative forms may be caused by just such a reconcep-
tualization of ablatives as locatives, throughout which the original morphological
form of the ablative is retained. The ablative morphology thus becomes associated
with locative meaning and may, ultimately, perhaps aided by reduction of affixes,
come to oust the original locative place-adverbs. My justification for this sug-
gestion is drawn from the observation that in the contemporary language in which
there appears to be an ongoing transfer, Faroese, the crucial examples tend to
involve just such ambiguities of interpretation.
A further indication that an explanation for the ablative-locative transfer is
to be sought in semantics rather than in phonology or morphology is that the
great majority of the adverbial expressions discussed above involve either
'semi-direct' or 'indirect' location, in the sense of Jessen (1975). Discussing the
structure of locational expressions, Jessen (1975: Ch. 3) distinguishes between
the LOCATION OBJECT (LO), defined as 'the place paired with an object by a
locative relation' and the REFERENCE OBJECT (RO), defined as the entity 'chosen as
belonging to the reference world on the background universe' (Jessen, 1975: 46).
In a DIRECT LOCATIVE EXPRESSION, the object identified by the prepositional
complement functions as both LO and RO. This is the case for all English
prepositional phases introduced by in, on and at, and also their translational
equivalents in other languages. Where the LO is an area contiguous with an
extremity (front, back, top, bottom, interior, exterior, etc.) of the RO, Jessen
talks of SEMI-DIRECT LOCATIVE EXPRESSIONS. All English adverbial expressions
involving inside, outside, in front, behind, over, under, etc., are examples of semi-
direct location, INDIRECT LOCATIVE EXPRESSIONS occur where 'the object to be
located is located indirectly by means of specifying an ordering relationship
between its unspecified direct location and that of the reference object with
X
54
respect to a third implicit or explicit location' (Jessen, 1975: 48): here neither of
of the objects is LO. Examples of indirect location are English adverbial expres-
sions involving ahead, between, above, below, etc.
Only in the Austronesian languages discussed above (§ 8) do we find examples
of prepositions of direct location undergoing the ablative-locative transfer
(Fijian e - mat; Sonsorol-Tobi ni - ifi ri). Note also that in the Romance languages
considered above (§§ 3.2-3.4) and in-Slavonic (§ 6.1) the system of interrogative
place-adverbs ('where', 'whence'), which can be used to elicit either direct or
non-direct location, is similarly subject to the ablative-locative transfer. With
these two classes of exception, however, all the locational expressions examined
above may be classified as 'non-direct', i.e. either semi-direct or indirect. It
would thus appear that the phenomenon is confined in its range of application to
those expressions where the LO is non-identical with the RO. It is interesting
that this is a necessary prerequisite for the reconceptualization process which was
hypothesized above. Where LO = RO, and an entity E is situated at LO/RO,
any movement of Efrom LO/RO results in E no longer being at LO/RO: E has
moved away from LO/RO and this can be indicated only by an ablative. Where
L O ^ R O , however, and E is situated in the area A contiguous with LO, any
movement of E from its place in A may or may not result in E no longer being
situated within A: for instance, if E moves from in front of RO, it does not
automatically cease to be in front of RO. In those cases where E does not leave
A, the movement may be regarded either as taking place within A, in which case
it will be conceptualized as being located at A, or as starting from a point within
A, in which case it will be conceptualized as being/row that point in A. The fact
that the reconceptualization of ablatives as locatives is possible only with
expressions of non-direct location, coupled with the observation that the meaning
transfer under discussion in this paper is confined almost exclusively to such
expressions, I take to constitute further sustenance for the hypothesis that
reconceptualization is indeed involved.
A major advantage of this conclusion is that it leaves intact Anderson's
claims as to the semantic naturalness of the type A dichotomization of case-
categories and that it calls into question only the derived hypothesis of lexical
naturalness, which, as I have argued, cannot be defended in the form given in § 1
above.
REFERENCES
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Linguistics 14 (1978) 129-375 Printed in Great Britain

Ablative-locative transfers and their relevance for

1. T H R E E DICHOTOMIZATIONS OF THE THREE LOCATIONAL CASE

It has been suggested by various proponents of case-grammar that locational and

opposition of 'locative' and 'directional' may be regarded as a particular

through examination of data, i.e. by invoking lexical naturalness, exceptions to

preferable, therefore, to retain the notion of semantic naturalness proposed by

2.1. Gothic, Old High German and Contemporary Standard German

Loc All Abl

THERE dar dara or darot dannana

INSIDE inne in innana

Loc All Abl

THERE f dort \ fdort\ C dort \

INSIDE innen nach innen von innen

Item Ablative use Locative use Allative use

Language-stage Ablative Locative

3 (fona)... -ana -ana or -e

4 fona . . . -ana -ana or -e

5 fona . . . -ana -ana

(10) Eg fari su9ur til Havnar

Loc All Abl

THERE har hagar ha9ani

INSIDE inni inn innan

(18) Si'mun gekk undan

(c) Another indication that -an, by itself, no longer unambiguously signals

3. PLACE ADVERBS IN LATIN AND THE ROMANCE LANGUAGES

debajo 'underneath' < VL de basso 'from low'

4. PLACE-ADVERBS IN ANCIENT GREEK

6. PLACE-ADVERBS IN SLAVONIC LANGUAGES

6.I. Old Slavonic

7. PLACE ADVERBS IN CONTEMPORARY ISRAELI HEBREW

A large number of Contemporary Israeli Hebrew adverbs and prepositions

[6] Data gathered from a native speaker informant.

(28) Ha-zvuv nimtsa al ha-§ulxan

(41a) Ha-sefer nimtsa jamin-a la-iulxan [le + ha+Sulxan]

Smol-a and mi-smol pattern in exactly the same way.

(44b) Aberdin nimtsa mi-tsafon le-Edinburg

8. P R E P O S I T I O N S IN TWO AUSTRONESIAN LANGUAGES

2 e keri ki keri mai keri

3 e kea ki kea mai kea

(52) I bwe soje me iolom i da ra ifi ri neirai

In §§ 2-8,1 have adduced evidence from five branches of the Indo-European

An alternative would be to renounce the quest for a semantic account of the

(53) Faa mjolk undan kiinni

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