Re: Cases, again

Quoting Herman Miller <hmiller@...>:

> Andreas Johansson wrote:
>
> > There's apparently a universal against prepositions governing the
> nominative.
> > Unaware of this, I made all prepositions in the Klaishic languages govern
> it.
>
> English speakers are taught to use the nominative after "than" (under
> the theory that "than" is "really" a conjunction), but I've never heard
> anyone use it that way in actual speech.
Swedes are taught the same with _än_ "than", on the same pretext.

My mother actually sticks to it; the resultant trench war is now well into its
second decade. Her standard argument is adding a verb - _hon är längre än
han_ "she is taller than he" is supposedly short for _hon är längre än han
är_ "... than he is". In my 'lect, the first is agrammatical, and the second
feels unnatural - I'd say _hon är längre än honom_ "... than him" or _hon är
längre än vad han är_ "... than what he is".

> Are there really no languages with prepositions governing the
> nominative? Does that also apply to the absolutive in ergative langs?
Various conlangs, incl Esperanto, but I am aware of no natlang that does it.
No idea as to ergative languages.

                                        Andreas