ASPECTS OF SPATIAL EXPRESSIONS IN MURSI

Mursi is a Nilo-Saharan language spoken in the south-west of Ethiopia. This paper presents some of the spatial-relations features found in Mursi, such as demonstrative deictics, locative deictics and directional deictics. The paper explores functions of the two-way deictic contrast found in demonstrative deictics in exophoric as well as anaphoric use. Some space is devoted to the interaction of demonstratives with the case system of the language, as this occasionally creates ambiguity in noun phrase constituents. Locative deictics are divided into two types: locative demonstratives and relator nouns. Locative demonstratives function as tools to specify a particular location in relation to the deictic reference point. Additionally, the strong relationship between locative demonstratives and the demonstrative construction is presented. Relator nouns function as tools to specify the relation of one entity to another or to specify a particular location in relation to the deictic reference point. The source of these relator nouns are inherent parts of wholes, namely body part terms and terms referring to domains of the universe (e.g. ‘sky’, ‘ground’, ‘border’), whose function is to relate one entity to another. As for the verb system, Mursi marks spatial relations via directional deictics. It appears that Mursi has only a ventive but no itive suffix, the latter direction being assumed when the motion verb is unmarked. It is further shown that direction can also be expressed through the use of verbs with inherent directionality. Occasionally throughout this paper, spatial expressions in Mursi are compared with other Surmic languages to show whether or not Mursi constructions are typical of the family.