Subject: summary : adpositional uses of ' eye '

in response to my query : > in languages where body part terms become adpositions , does > anybody know of examples where ' eye ' gives rise to some kind of > locative , such as ' on ' or ' in front of ' ? i received several very useful replies , for which many thanks . it transpires that numerous languages indeed do do this . specifics follow : alice faber ( faber @ lenny . haskins . yale . edu ) : biblical hebrew has _ b @ ' ene _ ( @ = schwa , ' = ayin ) , ' in front of ' , literally " in the eyes of " . i ' m not sure how transparent it would have been . . . jose alvarez " pipo " ( jalvar @ conicit . ve or jalvar @ luz . ve ) : in guajiro , an arawakan language spoken by some 300000 people in venezuela and colombia , - ' u is an inalienable noun meaning ' eye ' is also used as as a locative or temporal adposition in : jo ' u siki , lit . ' eye of the fire ' , tr . ' in the fire ' , jo ' u wanee ka ' i , lit . ' eye of one day ' , tr . ' on one day ' ( i omit the numerous other examples generously provided by dr . alvarez from this summary ) . chris culy ( culy @ csli . stanford . edu ) bambara ( mande ) and donno so ( dogon ) are at least close to what you are looking for . they both use " eye " together with a general postposition for " in front of " . some examples ( not in real orthography , but i can provide those as well ) . bambara : adama nye fe ( adama eye with ) ' in front of adama ' donno so : anta giru ne ( anta eye at / to ) ' in front of anta ' gabor gyori ( gyorig @ btk . jpte . hu ) in hungarian we have " szemben " ' opposite ' , e . g . " a hazzal szemben " ' opposite the house ' , where szem = eye + - ben = in ( haz = house + - val [ assimilated to - zal ] = with ) annette herskovits ( hersko @ bambam . wellesley . edu ) , referring , to papers by penelope brown and steve levinson on tzeltal mentions the use of _ sit _ ( ' eye ' ) as a locative but does not recall the specific meaning . willem j . de reuse ( wdereuse @ ccit . arizona . edu ) : in navajo , there is a postpositional stem - naal ( high tone on v , barred l ) meaning ' in the presence of ' , etymologically related to - naa ' ( high tone on v ) ' eye ' . see the young and morgan dictionary ( 1992 ) . also cognates in related languages such as apache . can also be translated as : ' in front of ' clifford l . lutton , jr . ( lexes @ mindspring . com ) suggests that the following english usages might be relevant : out there in the public 's eye reality is in the eye of the beholder out there satellites are keeping an eye on the site with an eye toward litigation with every eye upon him , he then see ghetto life through ghetto eyes [ out there or in ] in my [ mind ' s ] eyes , something is the situation hit america between the eyes in the [ minds ' ] eyes of the arab countries to take pictures or to eyeball [ locate ] it from 500 feet edit @ vms . huji . ac . il mentions a rather different usage , derived from ' eye ' , in modern hebrew : me - ' eyn ( lit . from-eye - of ) means ' a kind of ' . nicholas ostler ( nostler @ chibcha . demon . co . uk ) quotes some old grammars of chibcha / muisca : delante , en presencia . pedro ubana . . . upqua-fihistan . . . aunque el primero dice presencia , el segundo dice vista , y asi dice : m-upqua fihistan zos machiba , ponlo delante de tus ojos , llegalo a tusojos , o , llega la cosa a tus ojos para que la veas ( gonza ' lez de pe ' rez , mari ' a stella . 1987 . ' diccionario y grama ' tica chibcha ' - ms ano ' nimo de la biblioteca nacional de colombia . biblioteca ' ezequiel uricoechea ' 1 . bogota ' : instituto caro y cuervo . p . 230 ) . . . estos tres ultimos se dicen de cosa plana , y de cosa que propiamente no tiene asiento , como el aire ( quesada pacheco , miguel a . 1991 . vocabulario mosco . 1612 . estudios de lingu " i 's tica chibcha , tomo x , 29-100 . editorial de la universidad de costa rica . 38v s . v . sobre : fihista fihistaca fihistana ) " na " or " n " is a postposition of static location " m - " is a 2nd person singular personal prefix there is no explicit plural marking in this language . " uba " means " face " " upqua " means " eye " " fihista " properly means " chest " but is commonly used as part of = a local periphrasis for " on " . finally , monica macaulay ( macaulay @ sage . cc . purdue . edu ) tells me that the 15 mixtec languages she looked at do not have this usage , although it is interesting to see the list of other body part terms so used : face , hand , insides / heart , stomach , back ( of a human ) , back ( of an animal ) / nape , head , mouth , side , chest , foot , buttocks , ear , waist , throat
