Grammaticalization sources of denominal postpositions in East Caucasian languages
One of the diachronic sources of postpositions in East Caucasian languages are relational nouns, which is a cross-linguistically frequent situation. This study attempts to cover the diﬀerences and commonalities in the semantic group of nouns attested as lexical sources of postpositions across East Caucasian. Typologically, nouns of the following semantic groups are the most typical diachronic sources of adpositions: body part terms, object part terms, nouns denoting environmental landmarks, and abstract notions. The number of postpositions derived from body part terms and abstract notions varies from language to language: pospositions derived from body part terms are more typical of Lezgic languages spoken in south, while postpositions derived from abstract notions are found mostly in Avar-Andic languages in the north of the area. Postpositions derived from object part terms are the most common among East Caucasian languages. Postpositions derived from nouns denoting environmental landmarks (mostly connected to mountainous landscape) are also found in some East Caucasian languages. Within each semantic group, both cross-linguistically frequent (such as ‘eye’ > ‘in front of’ or ‘place’ > ‘instead’) and infrequent (such as ‘back, rear’ > ‘near’) grammaticalization paths are attested. Body part terms that are the sources of postpositions in East Caucasian include both human and non-human body parts (‘tail’), the latter being typologically rare [Svorou 1994: 74]. Postpositions vary not only in the semantic class of their source nouns, but also in the time when their grammaticalization happened. Some prepositions are synchronically derivable from their sources, while others are less transparent etymologically. Some borrowed postpositions are attested, both from external sources (Turkic languages and Arabic) and from sister languages (e.g., Tsezic languages borrowed a lot of postpositions from Avar).