Re: inalienable possession

charles wrote:
> I've been thinking of using active and passive participles
> to replace all prepositions. Is that possible in natlangs?
Explain what your mean by this.  If you mean forms like "concerning" in
English, then you'd simply be creating new prepositions.  However, it is
possible to eliminate prepositions (altho there are no known natlangs
with *no* adpositions, there's usually at least 1 or 2 words that can
only be called adpositions) with verbs and nouns.  For example, instead
of "he went up the hill", "he climbed the hill", thus incorporating
direction with the verb.  Better examples, "he went top of-the-hill"
(i.e., genetive, if you have one).  In fact, this is often the origin of
adpositions.  Words like "top" lose their nominal/verbal quality and
become purely adpositional, but there are languages with only one or two
generic prepositions, it's just that that's probably only a temporary
condition, after a while, noun/verb phrases evolve into full-blown
adpositions.

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