Syntactic relations within the adpositional phrase (Surgut Khanty)

Adp=NNonGov: Adpositions do not behave like verbs. Their complements appear in base form without inflection.


(1) pūpi čēwer kīńťa wökkəŋ.

bear rabbit cmpr strong

‘A bear is stronger than a rabbit.’


(2) pūpi məŋ kīńťa-ɣəw wökkəŋ.

bear we cmpr-1pl strong

‘The bear is stronger than us.’


(3) ťūt pӯrnə

det after

‘after that’


(4) īmi qūťəŋ-nə

woman close-loc

‘at the woman(’s)’


(5) qūťŋ-əm-nə

I close-1sg-loc

‘at me (mine)’


In Surgut Khanty sentences, postpositions express adjunct functions. Their heads can be nominal (1), (4) or pronominal elements (2), (3), (5), which are in their base forms.

Author: 

Márta Csepregi