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1a. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition From: Logan Kearsley Message ________________________________________________________________________ 1a. Re: Syntactic Differentiation of Adverbial vs. Adjectival Adposition Posted by: "Logan Kearsley" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Fri Sep 5, 2008 10:08 am ((PDT)) On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 12:44 PM, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Logan Kearsley wrote: >> >> Consider the sentence "I ate the fruit on the table." >> In English, this is structurally ambiguous, because the prepositional >> phrase can apply to the verb or a noun- did I eat fruit which was on >> the table, or did I eat the fruit while I was on the table? >> I think someone mentioned a conlang that has a semantic distinction >> between adverbial and adjectival prepositions; > > Quite likely, tho I can't think of one immediately. But Classical Latin > certainly makes a distinction. In CL prepositional phrases may be used only > adverbially. Not quite the same thing, I think. In that case, there's only one semantic class, and it does only one thing- modifying verbs; applying the same meaning to a noun requires some circumlocution to put a convenient extra verb in the way. It still avoids the ambiguity that arises in English from having a single semantic class that does two things, but it's different from having two distinct classes that each do one thing. >> But what about using different syntax to >> distinguish the two cases? Say, prepositions as noun-modifiers, and >> postpositions as verb-modifiers (or vice-versa)? >> >> Then the case where the fruit was on the table before I ate it would >> be "I ate the fruit on the table", whereas the case where I ate the >> fruit while I was on the table would be "I ate the fruit the table on" >> / "I the table on ate the fruit". > > I see; adpositional phrases use a preposition if they function adverbially > but a postposition if they function adjectivally. Interesting idea - somehow > I doubt that any natlang works like that - but you newer know with ANADEW > ;) There are natlangs with mixed adpositional systems, aren't there? I wonder what else they'd be used for.... I started contemplating altering one of my conlangs to use this sort of system (it would be a great post-fact historical explanation for why a few irregular features are the way they are), but I have a nagging feeling that it could result in different ambiguity as to which noun is supposed the object of an adposition; I haven't been able to think of a good example yet, but then I've only been thinking about it for a few hours while doing other things. I expect that sort of ambiguity could be reduced with an appropriate case system, but of course I can't check that until an example of ambiguity to play with. -l. Messages in this topic (3) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/ <*> Your email settings: Digest Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conlang/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------