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oa Adpositions in schwa in Saterland Frisian
- Amsterdam University Press
- Source: Taal en Tongval, Volume 76, Issue 1, Jun 2024, p. 37 - 65
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- 01 Jun 2024
Abstract
Many Sater Frisian adpositions may be lengthened with a schwa (-e). Our analysis reveals that lengthening is sensitive to syntactic, semantic and lexical-idiomatic factors. A necessary precondition for lengthening is that the adposition, together with the verb, expresses permanence, not change. Thus lengthening is characteristically found with immutative verbs, more specifically, copulas of predication expressing permanence like to be, to have, to sit, and so on, but not with copulas like to become. Lengthening is characteristically absent with verbs expressing a change. Lengthening is found with bare adpositions and with adpositions accompanied by an R-pronoun or a PP. Prepositions accompanied by a prepositional complement of the category DP (NP) are never lengthened, so the basic dichotomy is between prepositions, on the one hand, and all other adpositional elements, on the other hand.