Re: Language universal?

At 3:44 pm -0600 6/2/01, Patrick Dunn wrote:
[...]
>
>But I don't think that is a universal.  Attic Greek, I seem to recall, has
>some prepositions that govern the nominative, doesn't it?
No, it doesn't.

In attic Greek and, as far as we can tell, in all other ancient Greek
dialects, prepositions could govern the accusative, genitive or dative case
only. In modern Greek they all govern the accusative only.

>Esperanto marks
>case, and its prepositions govern the nominative (okay, not a natlang,
It certainly is not a natlang.  Indeed, it is one of the standard
criticisms of Esperanto that in this respect it does not behave as a
natlang.

I know of no natlang with a case system which allows prepositions or
postpositions to govern the nominative case.

Ray.


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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
                   [J.G. Hamann 1760]
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