bilong

On Tue, Jun 13, 2000 at 09:17:04PM -0400, Jonathan Chang wrote:
> In a message dated 2000/06/13 09:57:57 PM, DaW wrote:
>
> >The verb _bilong_ I assume is from English "belong", so does that indicate
> >existentiality or possession?  Or is it "be" plus a non-English ending
> >_-long_ carrying some form of verbal meaning?
> >
>
>     Existentiality and possession not as much as relation IIRC/IMHO. _bilong_
> is a very powerful, polysemic word in Tok Pisin.
Probably the closest we've got to it in English is "of" (also wildly
polysemous), and "of" seems to usually translate it pretty well.

Not a verb.  A preposition.