Re: Cases and Prepositions (amongst others)

On Wed, 7 Jun 2000, Robert Hailman wrote:

> Maybe. I've got a word meaning "some time", and it's a pronoun, so I
> feel that "at some time" would be that word put in the same case as
> nouns in preposition phrases beginning with the preposition equivalent
> to the English use of "at" pertaining to time.
Hmm.  Sounds intersting.  How does a pronoun meaning "some time" work?

>
> > > This kind of ties into the
> > > preposition structure, for example a word meaning "at some time" would
> > > go in the same case as nouns in a prepositional phrase with a
> > > preposition meaning "at".
> >
> > Sure.  But you need to be careful of relexing English prepositional
> > uses into your language's case system.  The rules governing which
> > preposition is required in English are often highly idiomatic.  There is
> > no reason, as far as I can see, why most American English speakers
> > say 'in line', while many New Yorkers say 'on line';  both are bending the
> > general meaning of the preposition to a very great degree of abstraction.
> > The same can of course be said about other languages:  most English
> > speakers would say, I think, 'at this time', while the literal translation
> > of the German 'zu dieser Zeit' is 'to this time'.  The same goes for
> > phrases like 'at hand', where German uses IIRC 'zu Hand'.
> >
>
> I've decided to make my prepositions each have one and only one meaning,
> so the English preposition structure won't be very helpful when I do
> that, because I'll have to break it down anyways.
>
> > > Again, is there any system to this throughout
> > > several languages or do I just have to make my own?
> >
> > Well, conlanging, except in rare cases like NGL, is ultimately a personal
> > endeavor.  You can do whatever you like, really.   There's so much variation
> > in human languages that, usually, most things you can think up on your own
> > have been done, somewhere (that does not mean, however, it will be common!).
> > Try to check out from your local university, or buy, a copy of Comrie's
> > _Language Universal and Linguistic Typology_, if you can handle the prose
> > style, which is rather thick.  If that's not to your liking, I'm sure there's one
> > put out in the Cambridge Linguistics library, which you should be able to find
> > at your local mega-bookstore like Barnes and Noble or Border's.  I know the
> > Cambridge series has one on case.
>
> I'll check those out, they sound like they could be useful. Meanwhile,
> I'll go ahead with it anyways.
>
> --
> Robert
>

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