Re: Cases and Prepositions (amongst others)

At 5:09 pm -0400 14/6/00, Nik Taylor wrote:
>Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>> "From here"?
>
>But "here" isn't an adverb there.  It's a sort of pronoun, meaning "this
>place".
At 4:23 pm -0500 14/6/00, Thomas R. Wier wrote:
>Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>
>> At 21:09 12/06/00 -0400, you wrote:
>> >
>> >How can a preposition govern an adverb?
>>
>> "From here"?
>
>Of course, "here" in this case is used substantively, not adverbially.
Sorry, gentleman, but this looks to mean horribly like a "vicious circle"
argument.

"here" is normally classed as an adverb.

So what are we saying?
(a) prepositions never govern adverbs;
(b) so in the phrase 'from here', 'here' is a substantive.
(c) why is it a substantive here?
(d) because it is governed by a preposition.

That IMHO is weak argument & seems like yet another example of applying the
norms of _Classical_ Latin to English.

I say 'Classical' since we know well that in spoken Latin prepositions were
freely attached to adverbs, e.g.
de unde --> Fr. dont; Sp. donde; Port. donde
de intus --> Fr. dans (originally an adverb)
etc.

And what about Spanish 'por aquí'?  Has 'aquí' suddenly transmogrified
itself into a pronoun or substantive because it's governed by a preposition?

I've never seem either the Vulgar Latin phrases nor the Spanish one so
described before - rather I've seen them called 'composite adverbs'.  So
why ain't 'from here' a composite adverb also?

Actually even Classical Latin does have one or two examples of such usage,
but grammarians always 'cheat' by writing them as one word, e.g. adhuc - up
to this time.

Ray.







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A mind which thinks at its own expense
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