Re: Case markings versus adpostions

On Sun, May 26, 2002 at 07:26:08PM -0400, Matthew Kehrt wrote:
> Hello, all!
>
> I was wondering about where to draw the line between cases and
> adpositions.  Currently, in Eviendadhail, there is no division.  Case is
> treated as a subset of adpositions, those that can only describe a verb.
> Case and adpositional status are marked by the same method.  That is,
> the subject of a sentence is thought to be describing the verb, in the
> same way the phrase 'in a box' could be used to describe a noun.
>
> How realistic is this?
[snip]

I'm not sure how realistic it is, but I know of a conlang where case is
marked by *optional* adpositions. (IIRC, the conlang is called "Odonien".)
When you stick with the "normal" word order, you can drop the case
markings altogether; only if you move words around, you need to add the
case markings to disambiguate the meaning.

Just FYI. :-)


T

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