Re: Two meanings of "with"

Harlan Messinger wrote:
It occurred to me that in each of the Indo-European languages I know,
the word for "with", whatever its derivation may be, covers both
accompaniment ("The boy is with his mother." "I'm going with David.")
and instrumentality ("He cut his fish with a knife.") This holds for
German "mit", Spanish "con", French "avec", and Catalan "amb". I can see
why there would be a connection between these two modes, but it also
seems to me not to be a necessary one.

How about "Are you angry with me?", where it's neither accompaniment
nor instrumentality?

Does this merger appear outside of the IE family?

Employing an instrumental word (koNDu) for accompaniment has some
idiomatic usage in Malayalam but it isn't a merger since the standard
usage for accompaniment doesn't employ an instrumental.

Q1. avaLE koNDu ennA ceyyuvArnu? A1. taikkAn paDippikuvArnu.
Q2. avaLE koNDu ennA ceyyiccu? A2. oru pAvADa.

Q1. What were you doing with her? A1. Teaching her to sew.
Q2. What did you have done (i.e., made) by her? A2. A skirt.

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

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Two meanings of "with"
    ... Is it present in any languages where accompaniment and instrumentality are represented via inflection rather than via prepositions? ... Japanese can use the postposition for accompaniment, and the postposition for instrumentality, but longer constructions may be possible, such as: ... I can't think of any examples in Chinese or Japanese where the same term/construction might be used for both. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Two meanings of "with"
    ... the word for "with", whatever its derivation may be, covers both accompaniment ("The boy is with his mother." ... "I'm going with David.") and instrumentality ... gamat, 'god comes here with gods), ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Re: Two meanings of "with"
    ... "I'm going with David.") and instrumentality This holds for German ... Is it present in any languages where accompaniment and instrumentality are represented via inflection rather than via prepositions? ... The vast majority of Australian languages have an instrumental case. ... The suffix involved has the same form as that of the ergative case; in some it's the same as the locative. ...
    (sci.lang)
  • Two meanings of "with"
    ... It occurred to me that in each of the Indo-European languages I know, the word for "with", whatever its derivation may be, covers both accompaniment ("The boy is with his mother." ... Is it present in any languages where accompaniment and instrumentality are represented via inflection rather than via prepositions? ...
    (sci.lang)