Re: Cases, again

Michael Martin wrote:

> I've got another question regarding noun cases. In a situation where a
> language has Nominative, Accusative, Dative and Genitive, but no other
> cases, what case is used for nouns being used in ways that this
> language doesn't have a case for? In other words, in the sentence "the
> man stands beside the river" if there is no case for "beside"
> (Adessive?) but we do have the four cases mentioned above, which of
> those cases should be used for the noun "river"? Or should there be a
> separate fifth case that is used in these situations, a sort of
> catch-all, miscellaneous case?


In German, prepositions go with either the Dative or the Accusative.
They go with the accusative if there is movement
onvolved(oversimplification alert!) and dative if it stays stationary.
Some prepositions can go with either - 'in' can mean 'in' or 'into',
depending on the case it's given.

But that's German.  I can't see a reason adpositions shouldn't be put by
any of those four cases.  You could use all of them, you could only use
one, or you could have a Positional case, if you want to.

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