Re: Noun cases in Tirelat

Logan Kearsley wrote:

> I've got something similar going on in Gogido. I started out with the
> idea of theta-particles, which are sort of like case markers in that
> they can attach to any noun and they tell how that noun functions as
> an argument to the verb, and prepositions. But, since there are lots
> of places where the semantics of verb-arguments vs. noun-modifiers
> overlap, like locatives. One could separate things by having one class
> of words (theta-particles) that can only be used for
> verb-relationships (basically, adverbial prepositions), and another
> class of words (prepositions) that can only be used for
> noun-relationships (adjectival prepositions), but that seems inelegant
> since Gogido doesn't distinguish adjectives and adverbs otherwise, and
> it makes more sense to use just one word for the same relation whether
> it's supposed to mark a verb argument or a noun modifier
The "adverbial-preposition" vs. "adjectival-preposition" could be a good
idea for Tirelat, though. I'll have to consider that. What I've been
calling "cases", with the exception of the "oblique / genitive", are all
adverbial. I do have instances of "za" (of, from) used both adverbially
and adjectivally, on the other hand; probably if I examined more texts I
might find other prepositions used adjectivally.