Re: Two meanings of "with"

"Harlan" == Harlan Messinger <hmessinger.removethis@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

Harlan> It occurred to me that in each of the Indo-European
Harlan> languages I know, the word for "with", whatever its
Harlan> derivation may be, covers both accompaniment ("The boy is
Harlan> with his mother." "I'm going with David.")

This may be disambiguated by replacing "with" with "together with".


Harlan> and instrumentality ("He cut his fish with a knife.")

This may be disambiguated by replacing "with" with "using".


Harlan> This holds for German "mit", Spanish "con", French "avec",
Harlan> and Catalan "amb". I can see why there would be a
Harlan> connection between these two modes, but it also seems to
Harlan> me not to be a necessary one.

True.


Harlan> Does this merger appear outside of the IE family?

Not for Chinese languages. For the former meaning, we use a verb
(prepositions are just highly specialized verbs in Chinese) meaning
"accompanying". For the latter meaning, we use a verb (again, you can
say it's preposition) meaning "using".


Harlan> Is it present in any languages where accompaniment and
Harlan> instrumentality are represented via inflection rather than
Harlan> via prepositions?

Or via verbs? In some languages such as Chinese (and Vietnamese?),
the so called "prepositions" are just verbs used for a specific
purpose.


--
Lee Sau Dan +Z05biGVm- +AH4-{@nJX6X+AH4-}

E-mail: danlee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home page: http://www.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/+AH4-danlee
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