Qaqet prepositions: The whole is more than the sum of its parts
Marc Hausdorf, Melanie Schippling
Many languages combine verbs with prepositions to convey various meanings. For example, in English you can walk to town, walk on the road, or walk below the bridge.
Often, they combine in logical ways: if you know the meanings of ‘walk’ and ‘on’, you also know the meaning of ‘to walk on something’.
Sometimes, though, it’s not as easy. For example, even if you know the meanings of ‘work’ and ‘out’, you still won’t know what ‘working out’ is. You’ll simply have to memorize the phrase.
Qaqet has many such phrases. See if you can work out which Qaqet verbs combine with which prepositions to form which meanings: Click on a combination in the left-hand column and then guess its meaning by selecting from the right hand-column.
Solutions
lu (see) - se (to)
Meaning: find, discover
Example:
| nyalu | savet | lungera | amaguleng | |
| you:saw | to:on | those | malay.apples | |
| ‘You found those malay apples.’ | ||||
In English, you ‘look for’ someone in order to find them.
qut (break ground) - te (in order to)
Meaning: serve food
Example:
| kiaqut | tamasmes | bareq | araqaqet | |
| she:breaks | in.order.to:food | for | her:guests | |
| ‘She serves food to her guests.’ | ||||
The idea here was probably that the host would ‘break up’ or divide the food – which was on a plate on the ground – and serve portions to their guests.
at (fall) - met (in)
Meaning: meet
Example:
| unatmetna | menamaiska | ||
| we:fell:in:each.other | on:the:road | ||
| ‘We met each other on the road.’ | |||
This is similar to the English ‘bumping into someone’.
guirltik (turn) - barek (for)
Meaning: pay back
Example:
| dip | nguguirltik | bareknyi | |
| will | I:turn | for:you | |
| ‘I will pay it back to you.’ | |||
In English, you can ‘return a favor’. Just be sure never to turn your back on someone who lent you money.
is (blow) - te (in order to)
Meaning: fan a fire
Example:
| nyistem | amengga | ||
| you:blow:in.order.to | the:fire | ||
| ‘You fan the fire.’ | |||
It is not too hard to see where this phrase came from: you blow a fire in order to ignite it.
ves (cover) - pet (on)
Meaning: thatch a house
Example:
| nyives | pruramidrigel | ||
| you:cover | on:our:garden.hut | ||
| ‘Thatch our garden hut.’ | |||
The combination here seems straightforward: the covering is put ‘on’ something, such as the roof of a house ...
ves (cover) - met (in)
Meaning: close a door
Example:
| nyives | meramatarlka | ||
| you:cover | in:the:door | ||
| ‘Close the door.’ | |||
... while here the covering is put ‘in’ an opening, such as the door of a house.
How to read the linguistic examples in the solutions
- In the first line, you find the Qaqet example.
- In the second line, the meaning of the Qaqet words is written.
- In the third line, you find the English translation.
Going further
- As you can see, some of the meaningful parts in the second line are connected with ':' while others are connected with '.'.
- The colon is used to indicate that the meaningful parts of a Qaqet word are segmentable but the segmentation is not shown in this example.
- In cases where the translation of a single Qaqet word requires more than one English word, the full stop is used to separate them.
Conclusion
Qaqet, like English, has some combinations of verbs and prepositions whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meanings of its parts. In the past, the resulting meanings usually made sense, but now they have to be memorized: they have become like words in their own right and, like words, they have to be put into the dictionary. This highlights the fact that Qaqet, like English or any other language, is constantly changing and evolving.