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Re: Implied prepositions

From:Dana Nutter <sasxsek@...>
Date:Thursday, July 20, 2006, 13:31
li [Gary Shannon] mi tulis la

> It occured to me that a conlang could almost be made > preposition-free if the verbs absorbed the role > usually played by prepositions. For example, in > English we can say "go into" or we can say "enter" > which has a built-in, or implied prepositional > meaning. Likewise "go out of" can be "exit", or > "leave" and "go after" can be "pursue". > > English has a few additional such verbs ("ascend", > "descend", "examine",...), but suppose a conlang had > the associated preposition built in to every verb. The > inventory of verbs would have to be much richer to > accomodate all the various possibilities like "go to", > "go into", "go out of", "go through", "go before (the > judge)", "go after (the thief)", "go around", "go up", > "go down", "go over", and so on. > > Perhaps the preopsition could become a prefix to the > verb: "ingo", "outgo", "upgo", "downgo".
Sasxsek uses prepositions, but they can be prefixed to a root to alter or clarify the meanings. So your examples above would be "hinukin" = hin (interior) + u (prepositional suffix) + kin (go/move) "sotukin" = sot (exterior) + u (prepositional suffix) + kin (go/move) "nebukin" = neb (sky) + u (prepositional suffix) + kin (go/move) "nizukin" = niz (low) + u (prepositional suffix) + kin (go/move)
> There would have to be more than one prefix for some > English preopsitions which can be ambiguous. "At", for > example: "He throws rocks at the park." could mean he > is at the park and throwing rocks (at nothing in > particular), or that he is outside the park throwing > rocks toward the park. But I wonder how much sense it > makes to attach a preposition giving the location of > the action to the verb. It seems like it belongs > attached to the sentence as a whole. "He is throwing > rocks (while at the park)." vs "Rocks, he is > throwing-at the park."
This would not be ambiguous in Sasxsek. He is throwing rocks (while at the park) lo {throw} kamen tu parak. he throw stone at(=locative) park. Rocks, he is throwing-at the park. lo {throw} kamen fu parak. he throw stone to/toward park. Rocks, he is throwing-at the park. lo {throw} kamen futu parak. he throw stone to/toward+at park. {*} = no word for "throw" in the lexicon yet. ------------------------------ dejnx nxtxr / Dana Nutter LI SASXSEK LATIS. http://www.nutter.net/sasxsek