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Re: 'per': was: Artyom Kouzminykh: Answers & proposal

From:alypius <krazyal@...>
Date:Friday, August 20, 1999, 20:41
>bsarempt@rempt.xs4all.nl writes: >>That's actually a very well-known phenomenon: most pidgins will have >>one preposition that indicates all sorts of relations. > >I've done something similar in both of my conlangs. In my current one, the >locative prepositions are: > > Yai - to, in, into, on, at, inside, to, between, among, with, through > Rai - out of, out from , from, away > Lai - above, up, over, > Hai - under, down, beneath, behind > Sai - around, along, against, about > Jai - in front of, before > >It's not like a pidgin, but i am partial to prepositions that can cover >relationships that in English use many different ones. >
Interesting. Get the total number of prepositions down to a reasonable number, attach them to the noun, and maybe its adjectives too, and you'll have one of those case systems that simplicity-obsessed auxlangers love to deride. It makes me wonder: do we really need all the prepositions we have in langs like English? Were these additional preps created because we really needed them--because the 8 cases of PIE really weren't enough--or are our many preps sort of like all those gradually developed verb tenses that conlangers love to tell us we really don't need? Has anyone experimented with a severely pruned collection of prepositions, or with a limited case system with no preps? Is this really workable? ~alypius