ADP:
Definition
Middle Persian mostly uses prepositions. There is one fully grammaticalized postposition (rāy) and some border cases of post- and circumpositions. As case marking is extremely reduced, adpositions are important words clarifying the semantic relation of constituents.
There are two classes of adpositions:
- functional
- lexical
(1) The functional adpositions correspond to case relations
- az for the ablative and genitive relations
- ō/awi= for the directive and dative relations
- pad for the locative and instrumental relations
- rāy for the dative relation
They can only appear together with a complement noun or pronoun.
(2) Lexical adpositions are either deadverbial or denominal.
(2.1) The deadverbial prepositions look like functional adpositions if their complement is a noun (pad šahr “in the land” vs. andar šahr “in(side) the land”). However, in contrast to functional adpositions, they do not host enclitic pronouns (with very few exceptions) but appear like pronominal adverbs and are then annotated as adverbs, cf. German darin “in it” (see Jügel 2015, Die Entwicklung der Ergativkonstrutkion im Alt- und Mitteliranischen, Harrassowitz, p. 239).
- u=š dard abar mad ēstēd “and pain has overcome it (=the soul)” vs. ud dard abar ōy mad ēstēd “and pain has come over it”
- se zrē ī meh ud sī zrē keh az=iš būd “three bigger seas and thirty smaller seas emerged from it” vs. se zrē ī meh ud sī zrē keh az ōy būd ibid.
Functional prepositions can be modified by adverbs to specify the relation (see case):
- ō “to” vs. andar ō “into” vs. abar ō “onto” vs. abāz ō “back to” vs. tā ō “up to” etc.
(2.2) Denominal prepositions usually require a linking element, the so-called ezāfe particle, which can also be missing.
- rāst mayān ī ēn asemān bē winnārd “(it) was arranged right (in) the middle of the sky”
- ud mayān ēn was nibēsam “and (I) am writing amid all this”
In order to increase consistency, the adverbial and denominal adpositions are annotated as adpositions.
Examples
- az “from”
- abar “on” (or: “thereon”)
- ō … rōn “to” (or: “into the direction of”)
- pēš ī “before” (or: “the front of”)
Border cases
As especially locative relations can be unflagged, denominal adpositions cannot always be distinguished from their nominal equivalent with certainty. If the noun is flagged by a preposition, the literal interpretation is preferred.
- az pēš ī māh harwgāh dō wād hamē wazēd “two winds are continuously blowing from the near side of the moon at any time of day”
If adverbs follow a prepositional phrase, we do not consider them postpositions of that prepositional phrase:
- pad šnūg andar ōbast “(he) fell on (his) knee”
as (pad šnūg) + (andar ōbast) and not (pad šnūg andar) + (ōbast).
ADP in other languages: [axm] [bej] [bg] [bm] [cs] [cy] [da] [el] [en] [es] [et] [fi] [fr] [fro] [ga] [gn] [grc] [gub] [hu] [hy] [hyw] [it] [ja] [ka] [kk] [kpv] [ky] [myv] [naq] [nmf] [no] [oge] [pal] [pcm] [ps] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urj] [xcl] [xmf] [yue] [zh]