In some languages, locative predication (‘X is at Y’) always requires the use of a posture verb (e.g. ‘X sits at Y’ vs. ‘X lies at Y’). The posture verb depends on the shape or the position of the item that is located. For example, a bottle may always ‘stand’ somewhere and a ball may always ‘lie’ somewhere. In these languages, a speaker could not simply say that something ‘is’ somewhere. Some posture verbs that may occur in languages are verbs for sitting, standing, hanging and lying. Note that this feature does not concern morphological marking of position or shape, but the use of different verbs for this purpose. If the posture verbs are clearly dominant in frequency this is sufficient to count as obligatory for the purpose of this question, even if non-posture verb alternatives are grammatical.
Meyah (ISO 639-3: mej, Glottolog: meya1236)
In Meyah, different positional verbs are obligatorily used to predicate the existence and location of (a) humans, (b) animals, trees, corn stalks, and houses, and (c) snakes, ants, rocks, yams, water, rainbows. The position of humans is encoded with the verb eker ‘to sit’. Members of category (b), which includes animals and inanimate objects that have legs, are located with the verb ot ‘to stand’. Members of category (c), which have in common that they don't have any legs, are located with the verb ah ‘to lie’ (Gravelle 2004: 223). Meyah is coded 1.
(a) Humans sit: Idu bera en-eker gu mei Idu TOP DUR-sit in water ‘Who is in the water?’ (Gravelle 2004: 224) (b) Nonhuman leg-possessing entities stand: Mega mos ongga en-ot gij Iskuruk tree mos REL DUR-stand in Iskuruk ‘The mos tree that is in Iskuruk village…’ (Gravelle 2004: 224) (c) Legless entities lie: Ineymes en-ah gu monuh Mandacan Ineymes DUR-lie.down at place Mandacan ‘Ineymes village is in the Mandacan area.’ (Gravelle 2004: 224)
Standard Dutch (ISO 639-3: nld, Glottolog: dutc1256)
In Standard Dutch, there is a composite generic verb zich bevinden which can be used to specify the location of an entity without indicating its posture. It is, however, rarely used in day-to-day speech, and usually either staan ‘to stand’, as in (a), or liggen ‘to lie’, as in (b) is used when referring to something's location. The verb that is used depends on the shape and the position of the located item. Dutch gets a 1 for this feature.
(a) staan ‘to stand' De fles staa-t in de kamer hier-naast. DEF bottle stand-3SG in DEF room here-beside ‘The bottle is in the room next door.’ (Jakob Lesage, p.k.) (b) liggen ‘to lie' De bal lig-t in de kamer hier-naast. DEF ball lie-3SG in DEF room here-beside ‘The ball is in the room next door.’ (Jakob Lesage, p.k.)
Hatam (ISO 639-3: had, Glottolog: hata1243)
Hatam has a generic verb jo which can be used to refer to an entity's location without specifying the posture of that entity. There are also posture verbs, but they are not used obligatorily, or by default, in locative predication constructions. Notably, in the examples below, posture verbs are only used for animate entities. Hatam is coded 0.
Use of the generic verb jo:
Lampu jo gau meja (dip). lamp be above table top ‘The lamp is above the table.’ (Reesink 1999: 64) Ni-mmeng mui jo tai biei. 3SG-leaf dry be around tree ‘There are dry leaves (directly) around the tree.’ (Reesink 1999: 64) Srad jo ghai dani. book be around me ‘The books are scattered around me.’ (Reesink 1999: 64)
Use of posture verbs:
No gwam ei meja behei. he sit LOC table under ‘He is sitting under the table.’ (Reesink 1999: 62) Ya ei biei behei. stand LOC tree under ‘He is standing under a tree.’ (Reesink 1999: 62) Minsien bong ei ig ne-te hi. dog lie LOC house 3SG-side other ‘The dog is lying beside the house.’ (Reesink 1999: 63)
English (ISO 639-3: eng, Glottolog: stan1293)
English is like Hatam, in that location of inanimate entities is usually specified with to be, and not with a posture verb, although English also has posture verbs such as lie, stand, sit and hang. English is also coded 0.
Ameka, Felix & Stephen C. Levinson. 2007. Introduction: The typology and semantics of locative predicates: Posturals, positionals, and other beasts. Linguistics, 45(5–6), 847–871.
Newman, John. 2002. A cross-linguistic overview of the posture verbs "sit", "stand", and "lie". In John Newman (ed.), The linguistics of sitting, standing, and lying, 1–24. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Gravelle, Gilles. 2004. The Meyah language of Papua. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. (Doctoral dissertation.)
Reesink, Ger P. 1999. A grammar of Hatam: Bird's Head Peninsula Irian Jaya. (Pacific Linguistics: Series C, 146.) Canberra: Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University.
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| 0 | absent | 1109 | |
| 1 | present | 212 | |
| ? | Not known | 1018 |
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