Re: OT: Another analytic question

--- In conlang@yahoogroups.com, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@Y...> wrote:

> Are there any analytic natlangs (or conlangs) that
> completely mark the roles of the participants so that
> word order is (relatively) free? Or am I venturing
> into unexplored (or unproductive) territory?
You are basically using prepositions to mark the roles
filled by cases in IE langs.  French and English, for
example, use a preposition (à and to) where German or
Latin would use the dative case.  You're just going to
the extreme here by replacing even the nominative with
a preposition.  You could at least leave one role un-
marked (the role of the absolutive case in ergative
languages would be a natural choice, for example).

My old conlang Obrenje is halfway where yours is going.
It marks all object roles with prepositions, having
inflected forms only for pronouns.


-- Christian Thalmann