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Adverbs VS Prepositional phrases

From:Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...>
Date:Tuesday, October 28, 2008, 18:39
I was analyzing some sentences and it occurred to me that adverbs can be turned
into prepositional phrases. A conlang could do well without any adverbs at all.

Consider:

He ran slowly. => He ran [IN a slow manner].
It rains frequently. => It rains [AT frequent intervals].
I'm happy now. => I'm happy [AT this time].

I also noticed that adjectives, in some cases, really act more like verbs in
that they can take prepositional phrases that are not related to the actual
verb. In those cases the verb could be changed into an adverb (or prepositional
phrase), and the adjective turned into a verb:

He seems worried about X. => He seemingly worries about X.
He looks happy about X. => He apparently does-happy about X
He is interested in X. => He has-interest in X.

The prepositional phrase really belongs to the adjective, not to the verb. In "He
is interested in X." "he" is not "is-ing in X", so the prepositional phrase
does not modify anything about the action of the verb at all.

I'm not sure whether prepositional phrases can always be turned into adverbs, but
it seems that may be possible too:

With great courage they advanced on the enemy. =>
Very courageously they advanced enemy-ward.

I ran past the window. => I ran window-passingly.

I'm not sure what it's worth, but I just thought it was an interesting observation
that is seems a conlang could use either adverbs OR prepositional phrases, but
would not need both.

--gary

Replies

Eugene Oh <un.doing@...>
Michael Poxon <mike@...>