Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adpositions

On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 9:20 AM, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:

> (Again I assume that 'fruit' in English is being used as a mass noun. I
> believe - tho i could well be wrong - that 'frukto' is a count noun in
> Esperanto.)
Yes, it is.


>> There are natlangs with mixed adpositional systems, aren't there?
Finnish apparently is one such:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_grammar#Postpositions_and_prepositions


> phil@PHILLIPDRISCOLL.COM wrote:
>> Usually I see this in Esperanto as well: "Mi mangxis
>> la frukton ." But in books
>> by Scandinavian authors, the phrase is commonly
>> placed in front: "Mi mangxis la sxtelitan de mia
>> onklo frukton."
I've seen that usage (prepositional phrase preceding its head)
criticized as a Germanism.


> (But both ancient Greek and TAKE insists on repeating the definite article
> if the phrase follows the noun, as tho one were to say: la frukton la
> sxtelitan de mia onklo - I guess that just ain't allowed in E-o.)
It's allowed, I think, just not common.  I'm pretty sure I've
seen that usage in poetry, though I can't think of specific
examples.  (Though I may be mixing it up with another unusual
bit of poetic syntax, "ADJ la NOUN".)

--
Jim Henry
http://www.pobox.com/~jimhenry/

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