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An Account of Leteh Adpositions
Abstract
This paper describes the morphological and syntactic properties of adposition elements of Leteh. It further examines their origin from the viewpoint of grammaticalization (Heine, Claudi and Hünnemeyer 1991: 2). Studies of this nature have been documented in the literature of Kwa languages, and noted that whereas prepositions evolve from verbs in the context of serial verb constructions, postpositions are reported to originate from body-part nouns and landmark terms (Lord 1993; Osam 1994; Ameka 2007). The paper reveals that Leteh adpositions are morphologically similar to the respective content words, but their syntactic properties differ. It further demonstrates that certain body-part nouns in Leteh are used in the extended context of location, and eventually acquire locative function. In the case of prepositions, the function of certain verbs in serial verb constructions extends, lose their semantic content and move from the verbal category to function as prepositions. Data were sourced from a large corpus of Leteh, spanning a variety of semantic fields. The study corroborates earlier findings on adposition grammaticalization in African languages.