Re: Bi-objective Prepositions & betweeness.

John wrote:

<<Loglangy insight: all of these compounds "unpack" to sentence conjunction:
"This gift is from me and Carlene" means (to a first approximation, anyway)
the same as "This gift is from me and this gift is from Carlene".
But "Newark is between New York and Philadelphia" does not unpack to
"*Newark is between New York and Newark is between Philadelphia".>>

Astute insight.   Funny you should mention this, because I came across this
very same problem yesterday with my pictlang.   What I ended up doing was a
circumpreposition which I don't think would be quite realistic in a spoken
language.   What it entails is a circumposition "between" which looks like < > (with
determinatives, but we'll ignore those).   Then whatever's inside can be
combined in various ways:

(1 object) < buildings > = "between (the) buildings"
(2 objects) < buildings trees > = "between (the) buildings and (the) trees"

The presence of determinatives would obviate the need for "and", but it
occurs to me that with this type of a construction you could put any preposition
you wanted in front of the second object to produce (possibly) metaphorical
meanings:

< buildings near trees> = "between (the) buildings and (the) trees (but
nearer to the trees than the buildings)"
< buildings far trees > = "between (the) buildings and (the) trees (but
farther from the trees than the buildings)"
< buildings against trees > = "between the buildings and the trees (i.e.,
keeping the trees from the buidings)"
< buildings for trees > = "between the buildings and the trees (for their own
good, or the good of the trees)"

You could do lots of things.   And, with your language, you could do a
similar thing, save without a circumposition.   So, for example:

'mi' = between, 'ka' = with, 'lana' = sky

misahua kalana = "between the water *and* the sky"

'se' = near

misahua selana = "between the water and the sky, but nearer to the sky"

'tu' = far from

misahua tulana = "between the water and the sky, but farther from the sky"

And of course you could switch the nouns to switch the meanings.   In either
case, this is dependent upon these things being a unit.   In other words,
you'd have to find a way from distinguishing between "I walk between the water and
the sky (nearer to the sky)" and "I walk between the water, while being near
the sky".   In other words, if the noun modified by "between" can exist with
or without a second object, then you need a way to make clear that the second
object is a part of the "between" construction, and not a separate argument (or
adjunct) of the verb.   You could do this with word order, but I don't know
how you deal with word order.   Or you could just leave it ambiguous.
Ambiguity's fun!   :)

-David

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