Localityending

Localityending is a term used in linguistic discussions to describe a hypothetical morphological suffix or set of suffixes that encode locality information—such as spatial proximity, orientation, or relative position to a reference point like the speaker or a discourse referent. The concept is not part of a standardized typology, but it appears in conversations about how morphology can signal spatial deixis and topological relations in noun, verb, or adjective phrases.

In typological discussions, locality endings would be realized as affixes attached to words and might stack with other morphemes such as case, number, or definiteness. They could specify scales such as proximal (near the reference point), medial (nearby but not identical), and distal (away). Some proposals imagine a uniform system across word classes, while others allow language-specific realizations.

Applications of the idea include explaining how languages with rich affixal morphology can encode locality without separate particles, and how locality marking interacts with other deictic and evidential systems. Critics argue that localityending as a label risks overlapping with established categories like locative case, directional suffixes, or deictic clitics, and may overgeneralize across diverse languages.

See also: Locative case, deictic expression, spatial deixis, affixal morphology.