Chapter 53Place Particles and Motion Expressions
Location, direction, origin, area, and route constructions, their dialect differences, and their relationship to postposed adverbs and translative ne.
53.1 Particles following place expressions
Ainu expresses many spatial relations with a place expression followed by a particle. In Nakagawa's Saru account, four particles form a spatial group: ta, wa, un, and peka Nakagawa (2024: 296–299).
| Particle | Main spatial function |
|---|---|
| ta | Location of a state or activity; arrival point |
| wa | Origin or starting point |
| un | Direction or goal |
| peka | An extended area in which something takes place |
These particles require what Nakagawa calls a grammatical place. An ordinary noun may enter that construction through a locative noun such as or. Words such as kim already have place status and take the particle directly Nakagawa (2024: 246–247, 296); Satō (2008: 35–38). See Chapter 52 (Relational Nouns, Spatial Forms, and Quasi-Incorporation).
53.2 Location, direction, and arrival
Ta marks where someone is, where an activity occurs, or where movement arrives. Nakagawa also gives its use for a temporal position, such as after a person's death Nakagawa (2024: 296–297). Directional un specifies the direction toward which an action is oriented.
Nakagawa contrasts this with an instruction to climb toward a treetop using un. In his explanation, un points toward the destination and ta presents arrival there Nakagawa (2024: 298–299, examples 419–420). Satō's Chitose description also allows endpoints with un, but leaves its difference from ta unclear in his material Satō (2008: 37–38) ‹contested›.
Direction extends beyond motion. Nakagawa's Saru example about hearing a child's voice uses ne nay or un, literally oriented toward the valley, where English would commonly say the voice came “from” it Nakagawa (2024: 299, example 421).
53.3 An origin and a route through something
Wa marks an origin. Its longer form wano is also used spatially and is especially common for temporal starting points in Nakagawa's description Nakagawa (2024: 297).
A traversed opening is expressed differently. Nakagawa uses puyar kari apa kari for moving objects through a window and doorway. In another scene, a hand extends inward from a doorway, and apa or wa identifies that doorway as the action's starting point Nakagawa (2024: 297–298, examples 416–417). The scene determines whether an opening is construed as a route or an origin.
53.4 An extended area
Peka presents an extended domain of activity. Nakagawa's kim peka occurs in a statement about accompanying someone through the mountains. His following example describes the ground splitting throughout the area where someone sits Nakagawa (2024: 299, examples 423–424). Motion is therefore only one kind of event that can occur in a peka phrase.
The difference from route kari also involves noun phrase structure. Nakagawa contrasts a phrase with ordinary noun plus or peka against expressions such as ruyka kari “across the mist bridge” and saramanto kari “through the skylight” Nakagawa (2024: 282, examples 369–372).
53.5 Postposed adverbs and classification differences
Nakagawa distinguishes the case particles from postposed adverbs such as instrumental ani/ari, comitative tura, comparative akkari, and route kari. Postposed adverbs can occur independently with a contextually supplied reference point, whereas his case particles require an immediately preceding expression Nakagawa (2024: 280–282, 296).
O-series person marking is common with postposed adverbs, but Nakagawa explicitly gives a=opitta as an exception for opitta “all” Nakagawa (2024: 281). The class's shared properties have lexical qualifications.
The category inventory also varies by author. Satō places limit pak(no) among case particles and comparison pak(no) among postposed adverbs; Nakagawa places pak(no) in the latter class Satō (2008: 35–41); Nakagawa (2024: 280–281) ‹contested›.
53.6 Translative ne and the copula
Nakagawa separates translative particle ne, which describes a role, result, or composition, from the person-marked verb ne. His numerical examples make the difference explicit Nakagawa (2024: 300–301):
Satō questions the category assignment of ne in his case-particle discussion Satō (2008: 35–41) ‹contested›. Its classification should remain distinct from the observable contrast in person marking between these constructions.
53.7 Regional direction forms and adnominal uses
Nakagawa's regional summary gives directional un in western Hidaka and farther west, en in eastern Hidaka and Tokachi, and (e)ne in eastern Hokkaido and Ishikari. He proposes a historical connection among these forms and verbal ne Nakagawa (2024: 302–303) ‹speculative›.
He separately analyzes adnominal un, as in kim un kamuy “a god of the mountains,” through its noun-modifying syntax and relation to the verb un. This adnominal use has a broader geographic distribution than western directional un Nakagawa (2024: 301–302). The shared spelling therefore needs interpretation within the construction.