# IE prepositions as postpositions



## francisgranada

Hello.

The Latin forms _mecum, tecum, secum, nobiscum_ ... are often used to demonstrate the hypothesis that the IE prepositions developed from "words" (adverbs etc.) that were "originally" used rather as postpositions, i.e. after the noun, pronoun etc. 

My question is, if there are also other examples for this phenomenon in Latin and/or in other IE languages. 

Thanks in advance


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> Hello.
> 
> The Latin forms _mecum, tecum, secum, nobiscum_ ... are often used to demonstrate the hypothesis that the IE prepositions developed from "words" (adverbs etc.) that were "originally" used rather as postpositions, i.e. after the noun, pronoun etc.
> 
> My question is, if there are also other examples for this phenomenon in Latin and/or in other IE languages.
> 
> Thanks in advance



There are many other examples in Latin of (so-called) prepositions appearing after a demonstrative or relative pronoun:

_hac *in* urbe_ "*in *this city"
_quo *in* casu_ "*in *which case ..."
_qua *de* re_ "*about *which matter ..."

If I recall correctly, this type of word order occurred (at least optionally) in phrases with a pronominal modifier and a following noun, but it may have worked with regular adjectival modifiers as well.


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## rur1920

Gavril said:


> There are many other examples in Latin of (so-called) prepositions appearing after a demonstrative or relative pronoun


There, they are put in the middle of the compound (nearly adjective + noun, right? given that the adjective agreed with the noun in case), still before the main word (noun), which is interesting, but still not exactly the case that _francisgranada_ was asking about…


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## origumi

Senātus Populus*que*.


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## Gavril

rur1920 said:


> There, they are put in the middle of the compound (nearly adjective + noun, right? given that the adjective agreed with the noun in case), still before the main word (noun), which is interesting, but still not exactly the case that _francisgranada_ was asking about…



Francisgranada can tell us whether or not that was the type of case that he was asking about, but I don't see anything in his post that would exclude the examples I gave. The words _in/de_ in these examples are clearly postpositions relative to the first word in each phrase (_hac_, _quo_, _qua_).


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## ahvalj

origumi said:


> Senātus Populus*que*.


It's a conjunction.

_"Instead of prepositions Hittite has postpositions, called “place words” by some. They serve the same function as the prepositions of the other Indo-European languages: they lend greater precision to the local or temporal distinctions provided by the case-forms of the noun. Most of the words that function as postpositions in Hittite are the same as those that function independently as local adverbs: šer, peran, katta(n), etc."
_Hoffner HA, Jr., Melchert HC · 2008 · A grammar of the Hittite language. Part 1: reference grammar: 297

_"In contradistinction to other IE languages Sanskrit has not a developed series of prepositions. Furthermore those adverbial formations which are used to define more closely the case­-relationship are normally placed after the noun used in this case, and not before it as in other IE languages. In comparison with the Vedic language later Sanskrit is noticeably poorer in words of this type, so that the distinction between it and the usual type of IE language is partly due to regression. On the other hand the system as it appears in the Vedic language. with freer order and looser connection of such words with the nouns they govern, is clearly more primitive than that found in Greek, Latin, etc., and is closer to the IE beginnings of the develop­ment of the prepositional system".
_Burrow T · 1955 · The Sanskrit language: 284


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## ahvalj

Gavril said:


> There are many other examples in Latin of (so-called) prepositions appearing after a demonstrative or relative pronoun:
> 
> _hac *in* urbe_ "*in *this city"
> _quo *in* casu_ "*in *which case ..."
> _qua *de* re_ "*about *which matter ..."
> 
> If I recall correctly, this type of word order occurred (at least optionally) in phrases with a pronominal modifier and a following noun, but it may have worked with regular adjectival modifiers as well.


I have never seen this usage, could you provide a sentence for each example?


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## Gavril

ahvalj said:


> I have never seen this usage, could you provide a sentence for each example?



-_ Si pacem facietis et Poenis captivos reddetis, ego *hac in urbe* manebo[.__]_ ("I will remain in this city")

-_* [Q]uo in casu* substituatur vir idoneus [...] eorum arbitrio, remunerandus._ ("In which case a suitable man will be substituted")

-_ Si paret agrum [...] causa *qua de re* agitur Sosinestanos iure  suo Salluiensibus vendidisse [...]_ ("the matter about which this dispute is occurring")


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## franknagy

The usage of postpositions is spreading to the German language based on the effect of Hungarian:
_"Männer laufen bei Sonnenuntergang einer Strasse in Pjöngjang entlang."_


> http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postposition
> 
> 
> _einem Bericht *zufolge*_ (+ Dativ)
> _der Einfachheit *halber*_ (+ Genitiv)
> _meiner Meinung *nach*_ (+ Dativ)
> _den Fluss *entlang*_ (+ Akkusativ)
> _des Geldes *wegen*_ (+ Genitiv)


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## ahvalj

These forms serve as conjunctions, in all the three examples.



Gavril said:


> -_ Si pacem facietis et Poenis captivos reddetis, ego *hac in urbe* manebo[.__]_ ("I will remain in this city")


"I will remain here in the city". Cp. _hāc atque illāc_ "here and there".



Gavril said:


> -_* [Q]uo in casu* substituatur vir idoneus [...] eorum arbitrio, remunerandus._ ("In which case a suitable man will be substituted")


_quō_ before Subjunctive "for, for this way".



Gavril said:


> -_ Si paret agrum [...] causa *qua de re* agitur Sosinestanos iure  suo Salluiensibus vendidisse [...]_ ("the matter about which this dispute is occurring")


_quā_ "where, how, which way".


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## Gavril

ahvalj said:


> These forms serve as conjunctions, in all the three examples.



Since they are formally identical, semantics is the only way to determine whether _hac_/_quo_/_qua_ are being used as conjunctions or normal demonstrative/relative pronouns.

In the first two examples, it doesn't make a clear difference (as far as I can see) whether or not _hac_ and _quo_ are interpreted one way or the other. But in the last example, if you interpret _causa qua de re_ _agitur_ as "the cause in which way the issue is being disputed" or "the cause where the issue is being disputed", neither translation makes much sense to me.

In the phrase_ quem ad modum_ "in what manner", the preposition _ad _follows a case form (_quem_) that, as far as I know, does not have a separate role as a conjunction. At least, it doesn't have its own entry in the dictionary I linked to.


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## ahvalj

I have no explanation for _quem ad modum_, so it may indeed be a petrified remnant of a freer word order, but it didn't represent the Classical Latin usage.

By the way, Botorrita is a famous Celtiberian site, of the people mentioned in that table, only Flaccus was a native Latin speaker, whereas all the others had Celtiberian and Iberian names.


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## Gavril

From the Lewis-Short dictionary's entry on the relative pronoun _qui_:



> Joined with _cum_: quocum, quācum, quicum, quibuscum; “rarely cum quo,”  *Liv. 7, 33*: “cum quibus,”  *id. 4, 5*. — Placed also before other prepositions: quas contra, quem propter, etc.; v. h. praepp.), _pron._


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## ahvalj

Gavril said:


> From the Lewis-Short dictionary's entry on the relative pronoun _qui_:


This is standard, no question, but does this mean that such broken constructions "qu… + preposition + noun" were a norm?

To clarify: Botorrita itself wasn't a famous town, but *this finding* was important for Celtiberian studies.


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## Quiviscumque

ahvalj said:


> I have no explanation for _quem ad modum_, so it may indeed be a petrified remnant of a freer word order, but it didn't represent the Classical Latin usage.
> 
> By the way, Botorrita is a famous Celtiberian site, of the people mentioned in that table, only Flaccus was a native Latin speaker, whereas all the others had Celtiberian and Iberian names.




If you browse your Caesar, you find at the very beginning:

_Qua de causa Helvetii quoque reliquos Gallos virtute praecedunt_

Classical enough for you?


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## ahvalj

Quiviscumque said:


> If you browse your Caesar, you find at the very beginning:
> 
> _Qua de causa Helvetii quoque reliquos Gallos virtute praecedunt_
> 
> Classical enough for you?


Vīcistis.

By the way, I have thought that this idiotic construction exists in Slavic (resp. Russian) as well: e. g. _нашего ради спасения / nashego radi spaseniya _"for our salvation" as a translation of _διά την ημετέραν σωτηρίαν_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed).


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## fdb

franknagy said:


> The usage of postpositions is spreading to the German language based on the effect of Hungarian:
> _"Männer laufen bei Sonnenuntergang einer Strasse in Pjöngjang entlang."_



This has nothing at all to do with Hungarian. "entlang" is a postposition, of which there are many in German.


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## rur1920

ahvalj said:


> By the way, I have thought that this idiotic construction exists in Slavic (resp. Russian) as well: e. g. _нашего ради спасения / nashego radi spaseniya _"for our salvation" as a translation of _διά την ημετέραν σωτηρίαν_ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed).


Nothing idiotic about it, and ради may even get into the postposition entirely: не корысти ради, а токмо волею пославшей мя жены!  ("not for profit, but only by will of my wife who sent me, [I beg you!]", a famous quote from "The Twelve Chairs"). Для and some (all?) other simple prepositions in informal spoken speech are also dealt with rather freely (not as freely as to pretend to be postpositions, of course), but that statement emulates high register.


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## ahvalj

I meant the insertion of the preposition/postposition between two governed words (a pronoun and a noun, like in these Latin and this Russian example). Otherwise, _radi_ is historically a postposition and is often regarded as an Old Iranic loanword (cp. Old Persian _rādiy_).


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## rur1920

ahvalj said:


> I meant the insertion of the preposition/postposition between two governed words (a pronoun and a noun, like in these Latin and this Russian example).


Well, this is apparently an instance of _de gustibus_. Insertion of a pronoun does not break affinity in the adjective + noun pair. To my taste, ради appears at the right time, leaving the nature of the action in the last position, where nothing else may already “modify” it, yet setting those for whom the action was made in the first position, making them the real “recipient” of stating what was said about the goal-setting.


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## ahvalj

rur1920 said:


> Well, this is apparently an instance of _de gustibus_. Insertion of a pronoun does not break affinity in the adjective + noun pair. To my taste, ради appears at the right time, leaving the nature of the action in the last position, where nothing else may already “modify” it, yet setting those for whom the action was made in the first position, making them the real “recipient” of stating what was said about of goal-setting.


Is there anything in this life that can't be eventually explained by experts? _сидя берегу на высоком_ etc.


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## rur1920

ahvalj said:


> Is there anything in this life that can't be eventually explained by experts? _сидя берегу на высоком_ etc.


Not being an expert, I can't say, but the logic to that is simple, no? In any case, that's not an explanation, but a profession of taste. Well, your example is probably possible to be explained, just we are not used to such constructions, that are not at all bad by themselves. In this case, though, _my taste_ (since we walked into the topic of tastes) would be to miss the preposition altogether, since after _берегу_ it serves nothing, the role of the noun is already understood.


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> My question is, if there are also other examples for this phenomenon in Latin and/or in other IE languages.



Besides Latin, there are also some modern IE languages that prefer postpositions to prepositions. For example, 

Armenian
_anor masin_ "about that/it"
_seghanin vra_ "on the table"

(_anor _and _seghani _are genitive-case forms; postpositions can be used with all the other non-nominative cases, but mostly with the genitive, ablative and dative)

I think that postpositions are also preferred in Hindi, but prepositions in Farsi.


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## francisgranada

ahvalj said:


> ... _сидя берегу на высоком_ ...


I think this is not the case we are talking about. My impression is that here rather the word _берегу _is in an unusual position (rendering e.g. more "poetical" the  expression), while the preposition _на _regularly precedes the adjective _высоком _the same way as in case of the normal word order (_сидя на высоком берегу_). 





Gavril said:


> ... I think that postpositions are also preferred in Hindi, but prepositions in Farsi.


In Hindi the case system itself is agglutinative-like, but it's a later innovation as the original IE case endings are lost. (As to the proper prepositions - I don't know how they work in Hindi). For curiosity, in the Carpathian Romani (Gypsy) dialects the prepositions always precede the noun, however the case system (perhaps except the _nominative _and the so called _indirect case_) is innovative like in Hindi. 


ahvalj said:


> ... "Instead of prepositions Hittite has postpositions, called “place words” by some ... "In contradistinction to other IE languages Sanskrit has not a developed series of prepositions ... and is closer to the IE beginnings of the develop­ment of the prepositional system".


Thanks, this is interesting. 





Gavril said:


> Francisgranada can tell us whether or not that was the type of case that he was asking about, but I don't see anything in his post that would exclude the examples I gave...


No problem, your examples surely belong to the topic. 





Gavril said:


> ...Armenian
> _anor masin_ "about that/it"
> _seghanin vra_ "on the table" ...


Is this the "normality" in Armenian? I.e. all the "prepositions" behave the same way?

As to the Latin _hac *in* urbe (et similia), _the German _ den Fluss *entlang* (etc.)_, seem to me secondary phenomena (not conservation of a previous stage).


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## rur1920

francisgranada said:


> I think this is not the case we are talking about.


That was an ungrammatical sentence that sounds utterly bad to any modern speaker of Russian. Apparently, ahvalj implied that "нашего ради спасения" is obliged to sound equally bad. Maybe it is obliged to sound bad (words are not humans, they don't have any bill of rights), but nevertheless it does not sound bad, which is a fact that we just have to accept.


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## francisgranada

rur1920 said:


> ... but nevertheless it does not sound bad, which is a fact that we just have to accept.


Only for curiosity (as I'm not very familiar with the "preposition" ради): which is more natural for a native Russian, "нашего ради спасения" or "ради нашего спасения"?


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## Gavril

francisgranada said:


> Is this the "normality" in Armenian? I.e. all the "prepositions" behave the same way?



I'm not sure what you mean by "the same way" here?

Armenian has a few true prepositions (i.e. words that precede their noun). They are much less numerous than the postpositions, but they take the accusative case of nouns just as, if not more often than postpositions: _tebi dun_ "toward home", _minchev irigun_ "until evening", etc.



> As to the Latin _hac *in* urbe (et similia), _the German _ den Fluss *entlang* (etc.)_, seem to me secondary phenomena (not conservation of a previous stage).



If I recall right, these types of Latin phrases are thought to be an intermediate stage between _*hac urbe in_ (postposition to the whole phrase) and _in hac urbe_ (preposition), but I'm not sure what the evidence for this is.


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## ahvalj

francisgranada said:


> Only for curiosity (as I'm not very familiar with the "preposition" ради): which is more natural for a native Russian, "нашего ради спасения" or "ради нашего спасения"?


The latter. The former doesn't sound awkward since it is a standard phrase, but the very idea to put the preposition/postposition between two nominals is awkward, as I had written. Also, _ради_ preserves some traces of its postpositional origin, e.g. _ради бога=бога ради_.


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## rur1920

francisgranada said:


> Only for curiosity (as I'm not very familiar with the "preposition" ради): which is more natural for a native Russian, "нашего ради спасения" or "ради нашего спасения"?


They are equal.
Standartisation had nothing to do with this impression, because I learnt of existence of this creed just this week. I think ahvalj is trying to over-analyse the matter.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Gavril said:


> Besides Latin, there are also some modern IE languages that prefer postpositions to prepositions. For example,
> 
> 
> I think that postpositions are also preferred in Hindi, but prepositions in Farsi.



Right. Hindi ( and probably Indo-Aryan languages ) uses only postpositions and Farsi prepositions.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Gavril said:


> There are many other examples in Latin of (so-called) prepositions appearing after a demonstrative or relative pronoun:
> 
> _hac *in* urbe_ "*in *this city"
> _quo *in* casu_ "*in *which case ..."
> _qua *de* re_ "*about *which matter ..."
> 
> If I recall correctly, this type of word order occurred (at least optionally) in phrases with a pronominal modifier and a following noun, but it may have worked with regular adjectival modifiers as well.



Right. Examples of this structure using  qualifiers instead of pronouns can be found , chiefly with cum :   magno cum periculo provinciae ; magno cum gemitu civitatis ; bonā cum veniā ; magna cum cura. That given, it seems to me that these prepositions do not really work as the postpositions of the languages where they are commonplace , because the head of the noun phrase is always positioned after and not before adpositions.


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## francisgranada

J.F. de TROYES said:


> ...  Hindi ( and probably Indo-Aryan languages ) uses only postpositions ...


Surely not _all _of the Indo-Aryan languages (see my post #24). 

The question is, if the usage of _postpositions _rather than _prepositions _in Hindi can be considered the continuation of an older stage (as in Sanskrit this "kind of words" was placed after the noun, according to post #6) or it is rather the consequence of the innovative agglutinative-like declension system? 

P.S. Two remarks to show the complexity of the declension system in the Carpathian Romani:
1. The nouns preceded by prepositions can be either in _nominative _(when used with article or adjective) or in _locative _, rarely also in _dative_ or _genitive_, case.
2. The "new" case endings of nouns/adjectives/pronouns are attached to the form of the _indirect _(oblique) case, not the nominative (as it is typical for the "pure" agglutinative languages like Turkish or Hungarian).


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## J.F. de TROYES

francisgranada said:


> Surely not _all _of the Indo-Aryan languages (see my post #24).
> 
> The question is, if the usage of _postpositions _rather than _prepositions _in Hindi can be considered the continuation of an older stage (as in Sanskrit this "kind of words" was placed after the noun, according to post #6) or it is rather the consequence of the innovative agglutinative-like declension system?
> 
> P.S. Two remarks to show the complexity of the declension system in the Carpathian Romani:
> 1. The nouns preceded by prepositions can be either in _nominative _(when used with article or adjective) or in _locative _, rarely also in _dative_ or _genitive_, case.
> 2. The "new" case endings of nouns/adjectives/pronouns are attached to the form of the _indirect _(oblique) case, not the nominative (as it is typical for the "pure" agglutinative languages like Turkish or Hungarian).



I am not sure to understand the notion of agglutinative-like declension . After your Carpathian Romani example the morphological  structure of a noun following a preposition is _root+indirect case+agglut.-like suffix_. Am I right ?  In Hindi the declension is reduced to direct and oblique cases and an adpositionnal phrase follows the pattern _Noun( root-oblique case) + postposition _: _kitab-õn mẽ _( _in the books_). There are simple postpositions and compound ones made of two or three words, the first of which is always _ka/ki: _(_ke pahle, before _) , a simple postposition , chiefly the possessive marker when used alone.

As far I know , there is no  preposition used in this language ( it's the same in Bengali and Marathy ) and I would be interested if someone could give an example. As to how the usage of postpositions can be traced back to Sanskrit and prakrits, the shift from a rich declension system  to a wide range of postpositions, this sentence summarises it  here ( p. 257 ) :

_In Middle Indo-Aryan languages, postpositions began to supplant adverbial cases, while in Modern Indo-Aryan , one typically finds only a direct /oblique case opposition, with a somewhat fuller inflection for pronouns in Hindi, the posposition having emerged fully triumphant.
_
It is not surprising that these languages use postpositions rather than prepositions, seeing that this feature is related to the dominant word order of a language ( postpositions in those with S-O-V order as Indo-Aryan ) , even though there are exceptions.


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## francisgranada

J.F. de TROYES said:


> I am not sure to understand the notion of agglutinative-like declension . After your Carpathian Romani example the morphological  structure of a noun following a preposition is _root+indirect case+agglut.-like suffix_. Am I right ?


 I think yes. I wrote "agglinative-like" because even if many sources define the Romani as an agglutinative language, in my oppinion it is not exactly so. I give you an example:

*Gav *(village)

gav (direct case)
gaves (indirect case)

1. gav (nominative)
2. gav (accusative, in case of animated beings the indirect case is used instead)
3. gaveskero _m._, -keri _f._ (genitive)
4. gaveske (dative)
5. gaveste (locative)
6. gaveha (<gaves+ha, instrumental)
7. gavestar (ablative)

All the cases can be used without prepositions, some of them also with prepositions. E.g. _gavestar _means "from village" and _andr'o gav_ means "to the village". The "case endings" -kero, -ke, -te, -ha and -tar are used with all nouns, so no different declension patterns exist from this point of view. If they were written separately (e.g. _gaves tar_), we could consider them even postpositions.


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## fdb

francisgranada said:


> If they were written separately (e.g. _gaves tar_), we could consider them even postpositions.


 
Who decides whether they are written separately? Romani is basically an unwritten language. Are you saying that the difference between "postpositions" and "suffixes" is purely orthographic?


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## J.F. de TROYES

fdb said:


> Who decides whether they are written separately? Romani is basically an unwritten language. Are you saying that the difference between "postpositions" and "suffixes" is purely orthographic?



Nowadays various writing systems are still used for Romani with attempts at standardization. For more information see Wikipedia ( 7.Alphabet ) . 

Indeed case-endings and adpositions have the same function, encoding the noun-phrase meaning in a sentence , but the spelling has to take into account the phonology of a language. If we look at the declension given by *francisgranada* (#34 ), we see that the instrumental case _gaveha _comes from a phonetical change _*gaves+ha_ . Therefore I think the form _gaveha _could'nt be split into a noun and a posposition as _*gaves _cannot exist on its own as a grammatically correct form. On the contrary a postposition can be separately written or become a suffix : the Hindi postposition _ka:_ is written separately after a noun , but is attached to the personal pronoun to form possessive adjectives : _bha:i: ka: ghar_ ( _The brother's house_ ) , but _apka ghar _( < _ap+ ka:_ ) ( *the house of you , your house) , probably because, unlike _apka:, _the other possessive adjectives are contractive forms due to a phonetical shift , _mẽ + ka: _having changed into _mera_ (* _of me = my_ ) , the same as French contracted articles : au (<à le ) , du , des. The possessive _apka: _could'nt be written in two words , even though the pronunciation would be the same, because it belongs to a new set of words where _ka:_ has disappeared by merging with pronouns.


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## francisgranada

J.F. de TROYES said:


> ...  the other possessive adjectives are contractive forms due to a phonetical shift , _mẽ + ka: _having changed into _mera_ (* _of me = my_ ) ...


The genitive of _me _("I") is _miro_ in Romani which both phonetically and semantically perfectly corresponds to the Hindi _mera_, so the common origin is more than probable. 

The indirect case of _me _is _man _in Romani, so the regular genitive of _me _should be *_mangero _(<*_mankero< man+kero_), but _miro _is used instead, which behaves like an adjective (e.g. _miri _fem.). Are you sure that the Hindi _mera _comes from _mẽ + ka? ... _


> ... we see that the instrumental case _gaveha comes from a phonetical change *gaves+ha ._


Yes, and there are also other phonetical changes, e.g. _mange _instead of _*manke_ (_<man+ke_, dative of the pers. pronoun _me_) and the genitives in -_kero _behave like adjectives, so this -_kero _may be automatically felt to be part of the preceding noun. Perhaps, the stress is also influenced by these suffixes.


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## J.F. de TROYES

francisgranada said:


> Are you sure that the Hindi _mera _comes from _mẽ + ka? ..._



Thanks for your question because I have to correct an error. I had taken this explanation from a Hindi manual and it was puzzling me too ( where the _r_ of merā comes from ? ) . After some further research I think I have got the right one . The 1st. and 2nd. possessive adjectives/ pronouns have nothing to do with the postposition _kā _, but come from the old genitive suffix_ -ra _ : _merā_ (my), _terā_ (your, sing.), _hamārā _(our), _tumārā _(your, pl.). So it is a fact that  the 1st. and 2nd. possessive adjectives  are originally genitive personal pronouns , but are no longer perceived as genitives , since this case has disappeared in Hindi unlike Bengali where it is maintained for nouns with endings in -r /-er/ rarely -ker/-kar .

Interestingly only the 1st. and 2nd. person possessive adjectives come from the real personal pronouns ( for
āp, the polite 2nd. personal pronoun I don't know ) , while the 3rd. person possessives _is _or _us_ _kā _( his,her,its) and _inkā_ or _unkā _(their) are formed with the oblique forms of the demonstratives , because demonstratives _yah_ "this" / _ye_ "these" / _vah_ "that" / _ve_ "those" are used as 3rd. literay personal pronouns, (reduced in spoken Hindi to _ye _( proximate sg. and pl.pronoun , he, she, its, they, these) and _vo_ ( non-proximate pronouns, he, she, it, they, that, those) ) . Oblique forms  of 3rd. of personal-demonstatives are _is _(sg.) and _in_ (pl.) for proximate ones , _us _(sg.)  and _un _(pl.) for non-proximate ones, hence the 3rd. possessives formed with _ka_ added to them.



 
 

 
 
.r


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## francisgranada

Thanks for your interesting answer!  


J.F. de TROYES said:


> ...  ( where the _r_ of merā comes from ? )...


Exactly... (And perhaps also:  why _merā _and not _mẽr__ā , _if it had to come from _mẽ _+_ ka_? ... ) 



> ... The 1st. and 2nd. possessive adjectives/ pronouns have nothing to do with the postposition _kā _, but come from the old genitive suffix_ -ra _ : _merā_ (my), _terā_ (your, sing.), _hamārā _(our), _tumārā _(your, pl.)...


The Romani equivalents are_ míro, tíro, amáro, tumáro._ (The final _-o_ regularly corresponds to the Hindi _-a_ in masculine gender, e.g. _báro _- big, _láčho _- good, _rakľo _- boy ...). 


> So it is a fact that  the 1st. and 2nd. possessive adjectives  are originally genitive personal pronouns , but are no longer perceived as genitives , since this case has disappeared in Hindi unlike Bengali where it is maintained for nouns with endings in -r /-er/ rarely -ker/-kar .


This is interesting, as it suggests that the Rom. suffix -_ker(o) _preserves an originally common "marker" (suffix/affix/postposition or whatever we call it) for the _genitive case_ (later rather _possessive adjective_). Do _merā, terā, etc..._ have different feminine and plural forms in Hindi?


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## J.F. de TROYES

francisgranada said:


> Exactly... (And perhaps also: why _mer__ā _and not _m__ẽrā , _if it had to come from _m__ẽ_+_ ka_? ... )


Answering your question would require someone more knowledgeable than me about Hindi. We can hypothesize the nasalised /ɛ̃ / has been reduced to an /e/ in front of a /r/ , but maybe the whole word has to be traced back to a previous state of the language where the personal pronoun had not the form of the present _m__ɛ̃ _( sorry for my previous misspelling in /e/ ) . This pronoun is _ma_ in Nepali, _m__ẽ _in Punjabi, _m__ɛ̃  _in Gujarati, mī in Marathi, _ami_ in Bengali_, mu _in Oriya.




> the Romani equivalents are_ míro, tíro, amáro, tumáro._ (The final _-o_ regularly corresponds to the Hindi _-a_ in masculine gender, e.g. _báro _- big, _láčho _- good, _rak__ľo _- boy ...).





> This is interesting, as it suggests that the Rom. suffix -_ker(o) _preserves an originally common "marker" (suffix/affix/postposition or whatever we call it) for the _genitive case_ (later rather _possessive adjective_).


Nepali has some nouns in -ô, and the possessive 1st.sing. is _merô _(masc.sing. ) _, mer__ī_(fem.sing.) , _mer__ā_(pl.) ( with a long e ).




> Do _mer__ā, terā, etc..._ have different feminine and plural forms in Hindi?



Yes, possessives agree with the following nouns according to the pattern of variable adjectives ( ending in -ā ) : _mer__ā_( Direct Masc. Sing.) _, mere _( Direct Masc. Sing. ; Oblique Masc. Sing. and Pl. ) , _mer__ī_ ( all fem.) . So the inflection is very limited compared to nouns with often three endings for masc. ones and three for fem. and the endings can differ between a noun and its adjective : _mer__ī_ _be__ṭiyā̃ _( Direct, my daughters) .


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