Why?

Sunday, March 8, 2009
Preposition

Prov. 27:1

"Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not wha t a day may bring forth."

mirrored skyscrapers

Chess: “savings” “preparation” “campo” “tax” : Etiam fortes viris subitis periculis terrentur: Even brave men are frightened by sudden dangers. Libra: the seventh sign of the zodiac, one of the ancient constellations, which the sun enters about 22 September and leaves about 22 October. At this time the day and night being “weighed” would be found equal.

preposition

In some languages, a word that indicates the relation of a s substantive to a verb, an adjective, or another substantive.

A word or phrase placed typically before a substantive and indicating the relation of that substantive to a verb, an adjective, or another substantive, as English at, by, with, from, and in regard to.

[Middle English preposicioun, from Old French preposicion, from Latin praepositiō, praepositiōn-, a putting before, preposition (translation of Greek prothesis), from praepositus, past participle of praepōnere, to put in front : prae-, pre- + pōnere, to put.]

USAGE NOTE It was John Dryden who first promulgated the doctrine that a preposition may not be used at the end of a sentence, probably on the basis of a specious analogy to Latin. Grammarians in the 18th century refined the doctrine, and the rule has since become one of the most venerated maxims of schoolroom grammar. But sentences ending with prepositions can be found in the works of most of the great writers since the Renaissance. English syntax does allow for final placement of the preposition, as in We have much to be thankful for or I asked her which course she had signed up for. Efforts to rewrite such sentences to place the preposition elsewhere can have stilted and even comical results, as Winston Churchill demonstrated when he objected to the doctrine by saying “This is the sort of English up with which I cannot put.” • Sometimes sentences that end with adverbs, such as I don't know where she will end up or It's the most curious book I've ever run across, are mistakenly thought to end in prepositions. One can tell that up and across are adverbs here, not prepositions, by the ungrammaticality of I don't know up where she will end and It's the most curious book across which I have ever run. It has never been suggested that it is incorrect to end a sentence with an adverb.

The Mayas keep their oral traditional from the waves of times

From an article in Cancun Today:
The Mayan languages (alternatively: Maya languages) form a language family spoken in Mesoamerica and northern Central America. Mayan languages are spoken by at least 6 million indigenous Maya, primarily in Guatemala, Mexico, and Belize. In 1996, Guatemala formally recognized 21 Mayan languages by name, and Mexico recognizes eight more.
Mayan languages form part of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area, an area of linguistic convergence developed throughout millennia of interaction between the peoples of Mesoamerica.
All Mayan languages display the basic diagnostic traits of this linguistic area. For example, all use relational nouns instead of prepositions to indicate spatial relationships.

Relational noun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Relational nouns are a class of words used in some languages that is characterized by functioning syntactically as nouns but conveying the meaning of prepositions. Constructions that can be classified as relational nouns are found in many languages, but the concept is usually used within the context of Mesoamerican languages, where the use of relational nouns constitute an areal feature of the Mesoamerican Linguistic Area. Languages that use relational nouns include the Mayan languages, the Mixe-Zoquean languages, and the Oto-Manguean languages among others.

A relational noun is grammatically speaking a simple noun, but because its meaning describes a spatial or temporal relation rather than a "thing", it is used to describe location, movement, and other relations just as prepositions do in the languages that have them. When used the noun is owned by another noun and describes a relation between its "owner" and a third noun. For example one could say "the cup is the table its-surface", where "its surface" is a relational noun denoting the position of something standing on a flat surface. E.g., in Classical Nahuatl:

Ca ī-pan petlatl in mistōn

Be its-on mat the cat

"The cat is on the mat"

Often relational nouns will be derived from, or related in meaning to, words for bodyparts, so that for example to say "inside" one will say "its stomach" or to say "on top of" one will say "its back".