Re: Prepositions and case

On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 4:27 PM, R A Brown <ray@...> wrote:
>  A similar process happened in Greek. The modern language has lost the
>  dative, and all prepositions govern the accusative (even the ancient
>  ones that governed the genitive now govern the accusative, even tho the
>  modern language still retains the genitive case).
The genitive (and even the dative) is still around in fixed
expressions (which I don't think you excluded) - but I think there are
one or two cases where particle + genitive is still productive.

The one that comes to mind is "meso(n)" = "via, through, by means of",
which Triandafyllides calls an "adverb used prepositionally", as in
"Esteila to gramma meso Thessalonikis". I've also seen this written
with omega (with or without iota-subscript), which is the form I tend
to use.

I'm not sure why he calls it an adverb (nor with "exaitias" = "because
of", another of the examples he gave); they both seem to me to require
an object, and act like prepositions to me. (And they both take the
genitive.)

While looking the topic up, I saw that a couple of prepositions also
govern the nominative in certain cases; these are "gia" and "apo"
"when they represent a departure point, state or result and the noun
they accompany refers to the subejct" ("Mono oi protheseis _gia_ kai
_apo_ syntassontai kai *me onomastiki*, otan simainoun afetiria,
katastasi i apotelesma kai t' onoma pou synodevoun anaferetai sto
ypokeimeno"), as in "to xero apo mikros" (I have known that since I
was little) or "gyrevei thesi gia epistatis" (he's looking for a post
as overseer); compare "ton xero apo mikro" (I have known him since he
was little) and "ton pire gia voitho" (he took him on as a helper).
Also, the prepositions "syn, epi, dia, plin, meion" when used
mathematically as "plus, times, divided by, minus, minus"
respectively.

Cheers,
--
Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>