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