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--- In ceqli@yahoogroups.com, Jim Henry <jimhenry1973@g...> wrote: > On 7/7/05, Rex May - Baloo <rmay@m...> wrote: > > on 7/7/05 3:32 AM, Jim Henry at jimhenry1973@g... wrote: > I prefer to have more specific prepositions rather than vague ones, > generally. In my own conlang gjax-zym-byn I have separate > postpositions for motion toward, giving-or-selling-to, > becoming-related-to, etc. - so many and specific that > they sometimes carry the whole burden of the sentence > with no verb being required. But I'm not sure such fine > granularity makes sense in an IAL; at least not > as a requirement. For an auxlang (or anything meant to be learned and used by non- specialists), it's better to start with general, high-frequency concepts and add precision through compounding or through adding them as longer (though still primitive) forms. > Maybe you could have a triplet of highly generic > prepositions - to, into/at, in/from, out of > - and a larger set of more specific ones. Beginners could stick > to the core set until they get comfortable with the more > specific prepositions. And maybe some of the specific > prepositions are compounds of some noun or verb root > plus one of the core vague prepositions. (All this > is stuff from gjax-zym-byn.) The generic forms I generally use are to/for [goal/destination], in/at [location/status], from [departure point/cause], and of/than [general relationship/comparison]. Steve