THEORY: Adpositions taking the nominative [was Re: CHAT: Back on the list; Anti-conlanging bigots]

Quoting Kala Tunu <kalatunu@...>:

> As for Esperanto, i thought that the accusative -n tag is
> not needed after a preposition because the object of the
> preposition always immediately follows the preposition so
> the word order is clear enough without the -n accusative
> tag.
That would be a fine explanation except for one thing:  you
*never* see prepositions with the accusative -n tag and not
change the meaning fairly substantially, also. It's not an
option; saying

  * {Mi iris en la domon.
    {I went around in the house.

is ungrammatical with the above meaning.  The -n is clearly
functioning differently from regular patient role marking.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier <trwier@...> <http://home.uchicago.edu/~trwier>
                     "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
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