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Re: THEORY: What, Besides Verbs, Can Take Two Or More Arguments?

From:John Vertical <johnvertical@...>
Date:Wednesday, August 3, 2005, 9:08
>In English, a few prepositions, such as "between", take two arguments; >these arguments both play exactly the same role.
Hmm... "Between you and me" "Between me and you" Seems to me that there might be a slight difference between the topicality of the arguments: the focus would have to be the first one.
>What about English words like "than" and "as"? What lexical category do >they belong to? Are they requiring more than one argument, as "than" seems >to, and "as" sometimes seems to? Are the arguments equal in role?
>Tom H.C. in MI
Isn't the equality of the arguments easy to test? Just swap 'em and see if the phrase's meaning changes. The only instance of "as" taking equal arguments would be its use as a synchronity conjunction: "It roared as it ran" <> "It ran as it roared". Tho IMO this exhibits a similar topicality difference as "between" does. But used eg causally, the inequality is more apparent: "It floated as it was lighter than water" <> "It was lighter than water as it floated". Let alone the nonsensical results obtained from eg "Funny as Batman as a gardener". :) "Than" then: As I see it, it's used to mark something as a comparision point, so the arguments are inherently inequal. "Look there rather than here" <> "Look here rather than there" Anyway... it's apparent that prepositions and conjunctions can take two arguments. Next, how about adjectives, adverbs etc? Imagine a language with "passive" and "active" comparatives, which translated "Make it better" and "Liquorice is better than fudge" with two different forms of "better". And the prolative case (meaning route, means of transportation, etc) could be used for an example of a bivalent noun - it might in some languages require both an origin and a destination. To generalize, any case bearing the function of a trivalent conjunction (or preposition?) would generate bivalent nouns. More later if I think of anything... John Vertical _________________________________________________________________ MSN Hotmail Plus - jopa 2 GB tallennustilaa sähköposteillesi. http://www.imagine-msn.com/hotmail/fi-fi/