Origin: FOLDER__ - 0017 - language From: JIM HENRY PRIVATE To: CONLANG ML Date: 08/12/96 at 09:56 Re: Prepositions ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: conlang@diku.dk Has there been any attempt to systematically categorize prepositions, or to form the prepositions in a language by a scheme similar to the Esperanto correlative table? (All I say applies equally to postpositions, of course, and to some extent to case markers.) A fair number of prepositions can be usefully described and produced by a scheme such as that I describe below, but some elude categorization, or require special treatment. I'll first analyze spatial prepositions. Take the basic locative (0) as primary. This can, without any further specification, mean generally "at", or "in", "around," "throughout," and so forth - but only (so far) in the physical meanings of the English prepositions. Next, combine various directions, in some sort of axis system... it can be absolute (e.g., north/south...) or relative to the speaker, subject of sentence, or most likely object of preposition (e.g., left/right and front/back); in either case you'd also want up/down. A special case is "opposite" - the reverse direction from the relative direction of the object of preposition and the subject of the sentence. That was awkward; here's another attempt. The "opposite" direction is that direction that the subject of the sentence would have to travel in, in order to pass through the object of the preposition and continue on the other side. (This is, as shown below, in order to handle such prepositions as "across," "beyond," "through," etc.) It needs better name, but I'm not sure what name to use. Divide motion along each of these directions into toward (+) and away (-). Mark further for interior (e.g. in, into) vs. exterior (e.g. at the outside, to the outside), as with the Finnish locative cases, and for contact or proximity (e.g., at vs. near, on vs. above). (The contact/proximity and interior/exterior opposition is probably meaningless with nouns whose referents don't have distinct boundaries, though.) Then you could derive, for instance, System coordinates English equivalent 0 at, in or near 0 contact at 0 proximity near 0 interior in 0 exterior around + contact to + proximity towards - from +,- opposite, int. through 0 or - opposite, ext. beyond +,- ext. passing by + int. into - int. out of 0 up, contact, ext. on + up, contact, ext. onto - up, contact, ext. off of 0 up, proximity, ext. above, over 0 down, ext. under*, underneath 0 down, ext. proximity below 0 front, ext. before, in front of 0 back, ext. behind, in back of opposite ext. across** * - English seems to make more distinctions with up than down prepositions. There's no equivalent of "onto" for the down direction. ** - Across is marked as being on the opposite direction (through the object of the preposition) relative to the subject of the sentence, but can depending on context mean either *at* that point, or *to* that point. That's all of the spatial prepositions in the Rick Harrison's Universal Language Dictionary. The system can also, of course, derive many useful prepositions that require long phrases in English: - int. moving out of (but still inside) + down, ext., contact into a position beneath (down equivalent of "onto") + up, int. into from above 0 up, int. inside, in the upper part of 0 down, int. inside, in the lower part of And so forth. By adding time (or replacing an implied "spatial" in the above examples with "temporal"), with 0 as the time of the event-object, we can derive: time 0 when, during time 0 int. during time +,- int. throughout time + past, contact, ext. until time - future, contact, ext. (future equiv. of "until") time 0 past, ext. before time 0 future, ext. after time 0 ext. before and after By adding topic, we can get: topic 0 about, on the topic of topic 0 ext. proximity on a related topic... topic + contact speaking of which... topic - contact moving away from that topic By adding "reason" ("motive" or "end" depending on direction -/+) we can get: reason - because; from the motive... reason + so that; to the end that reason + contact for the immediate purpose of reason + proximity for the ultimate purpose of By replacing human motivation with natural cause and effect, we can get a parallel pair and perhaps others: causality - because (physics, logic) causality - contact because (immediate cause) causality + contact to the effect that (immediate) causality + proximity to the effect that (indirect) It took me a little while to figure out how best to analyze "of," "de", and the genitive case. These are pretty polysemous (sp?) in natlangs, but there's some consistency in the polysemy. Here's what I've come up with: property 0 of (belonging to) property + to (transfer of property) property - from (transfer of property) These prepositions would be used in translations of "John's house," "I sold a house to John," and "I bought a house from John" respectively. The to/from used in these English sentences is only metaphorically related to the spatial to/from, as the house doesn't move (except perhaps in "legal space"). relation 0 of (related to) relation + to, unto (beginning relationship) relation - ending relationship These prepositions would be used to translate the English phrases "the mother of John," and "Unto you a child is born." I'm not sure what an English example of the last concept would be. It might be used to translate things like "the ex-wife of John," thus: the wife [relation -] John; but that would be ambigious between "divorced wife" and "dead wife", and have an implication of recency that isn't present in the English phrase. Maybe "John's wife died" would be translated "Wife [relation -] John died," and "John divorced his wife" would be "John divorced [relation -] wife."? Finally, by replacing the central coordinate with "home or place of business", we can get one of my favorite prepositions in any natlang: home/business 0 int. chez (French) besides, of course, + and - variants. Feel free to implement all or part of this in your languages. I don't think I'll be implementing it in full in any artlang, but it might come in useful, along with the ULD, to help me check whether my preposition inventories are big enough to be useful. (The system could also, of course, be used to produce pronouns as well - such as French "y", archaic English "hence, hither, thence, thither" etc. (and interrogatives such as whence? whither?). When I get around to making up a philosophical or logical language (it will probably be a loglan made up by someone in the world of the Thau', Llegisia et al.) I may use the system in full, but not otherwise. (Hmm... maybe my answer to AllNoun. A language containing only or mainly prepositions; all nouns are bound morphemes within prepositions... :) -- jim.henry@silver.com "Apologies if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings." - Twirlip of the Mists, in _A Fire Upon the Deep_ by Vernor Vinge. --- þ RM 1.31 3176 þ jim.henry@silver.com <*> Origin: FOLDER__ - 0017 - language From: JEFFREY HENNING PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 08/13/96 at 22:09 Re: CONLANG: Prepositional Sy ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ÿ@TO :jim.henry N ÿ@FROM :74774.157@compuserve.com N ÿ@SUBJECT:CONLANG: Prepositional System N ÿ@UMSGID :<960814020946_74774.157_EHL234-2@CompuServe.COM> N From owner-conlang@diku.dk Tue Aug 13 19:24:39 1996 Received: from vidar.diku.dk (daemon@vidar.diku.dk [130.225.96.249]) by altmail .holonet.net with ESMTP id TAA12978; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 19:24:39 -0700 Received: (from daemon@localhost) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) id EAA20537 for conlang-outgoing; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 04:11:05 +0200 Received: from dub-img-1.compuserve.com (dub-img-1.compuserve.com [149.174.206. 131]) by vidar.diku.dk (8.6.12/8.6.12) with ESMTP id EAA20530 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 04:10:59 +0200 Received: by dub-img-1.compuserve.com (8.6.10/5.950515) id WAA03234; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 22:10:56 -0400 Date: 13 Aug 96 22:09:46 EDT From: Jeffrey Henning <74774.157@compuserve.com> To: Conlang Subject: CONLANG: Prepositional System Message-ID: <960814020946_74774.157_EHL234-2@CompuServe.COM> Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Jeffrey Henning <74774.157@compuserve.com> jim.henry@silver.com (JIM HENRY) writes: >>Has there been any attempt to systematically categorize >>prepositions, or to form the prepositions in a language by a scheme >>similar to the Esperanto correlative table? Great minds think alike! :-) Here's the system I have been nursing along for my current language project. Regards, Jeffrey ---------------------------------------- Prepositions Safarlin has five different types of prepositions: * Instrumental prepositions * Associative prepositions * Directive prepositions * Motive prepositions * Temporal prepositions Instrumental Prepositions The instrumental prepositions are: ba by ji for (as a means of) ro to (in order to) ye with (by means of). "The pizza can be cut BY us WITH a knife FOR dividing it fairly IN ORDER TO share." Associative Prepositions The associative prepositions associate the object of the preposition with that being discussed. They can be divided into ten core concepts and their opposites, for a total of 20 associative prepositions. [Note: the form _zuz_ indicates I have not yet chosen the form for this preposition.] da zuz "topic" about (concerning) da konzuz not about (not concerning) da nacin "source" according to da konnacin not according to da sahar "support" in favor of da konsahar against (in opposition to) da zuz "exception" but (except) da konzuz but especially da susitut "substitution" for (in place of); instead of da konsusitut not in place of da kaz "cause" on account of (because of) da konkaz in spite of da malak "possession" of da konmalak not of da zuz to (indirect object) da konzuz from kan with konkan without Most of these prepositions are two-word compounds, each beginning with the element _da_. This particle converts the root following it into a preposition, so that _da nacin_ is "about, concerning", from _nacin_, "source". The particle _da_ can be used to convert any free word into a preposition, although the prepositions listed above the most common forms used. The Seven Pillars Of Prepositions Directive prepositions, Motive prepositions, Temporal prepositions Safarlin has seven "pillar prepositions", which serve as columns to hold up a framework of prepositions of direction, movement and time. Temporal conjunctions are also formed from these pillar prepositions. To memorize them, concentrate on this list of free words, with the meanings given just emphasizing stationary places: cas \SHASS\ above fes \FESS\ off his \HEESS\ in front of kos \KOESS\ at the top of pus \POOSS\ outside sus \SOOSS\ around tos \TOESS\ left [the direction] Note that all these roots end in 's'. Also note that the first letters cycle through all seven of the unvoiced consonants of Safarlin: c-f-h-k-p-s-t. You can memorize this by thinking, "SHe Found His Collection of Prepositions, Seven in a Table," where the capitalized letters SH-F-H-C-P-S-T highlight the initial sounds of these prepositions. Note that the vowels cycle through and then reverse: a-e-i-o-u-u-o. Practice this until you can recite the prepositions in order. Now visualize the following story, which will help you memorize the meaning of the prepositional free words in the order they appear: A humming-bird is flying ABOVE your house. It hovers just OFF the roof, then begins to descend. It is now IN FRONT OF your house. It hovers AT THE TOP of your house. Of course, it is OUTSIDE your house, but it appears to be looking for a way in. It begins to fly AROUND your house. It veers off to the RIGHT going behind your house and out of your sight. Practice these mnemonics until you begin to learn these seven free words, because they can be used to make FORTY different prepositions. Safarlin does this be appending a bound morpheme to indicate one of three categories: PO (place, stationary), TO (toward, motion) and KO (time, think of Calendar time to remember the K sound). (Another memorization aide, if you know phonetics: p-t-k are the three unvoiced stop consonants, from front to back of the mouth.) This allows for three categories of seven each, which can then be distinguished by opposites. po to ko Position Motion Time cas caspo casto casko "above" "over" "after" koncaspo koncasto koncasko "below" "under" "before" fes fespo festo fesko "off" "off, from" "starting at" konfespo konfesto konfesko "on" "to" "at" his hispo histo -- "in front of" "past (in front of)" -- konhispo konhisto -- "behind" "past (behind)" -- kos kospo kosto kosko "at the top of" "up, upward" "since, from" konkospo konkosto konkosko "at the bottom of""down, downward" "till, until" pus puspo pusto pusko "outside" "out, outward" "outside" konpuspo konpusto konpusko "inside" "in, inward, into""inside, during, within" sus suspo susto susko "around" "along" "around (approximately)" konsuspo konsusto konsusko "among" "through, across""during" tos tospo tosto -- "left" "leftward" -- kontospo kontosto -- "right" "rightward" -- The words for some of these prepositions are fairly long, given how frequently these words are used, but the ease of learning makes up for this. Which part of a concept is marked with a kon- tends to be based on which end of a concept can be assigned a number closest to zero. For instance, "above" can go up into outer space (infinite height), while "below" can go down to the center of the earth (zero), so "below" is marked by _kon_; "at the bottom of" is marked for a similar reason. The meaning "on" is zero, while "off" can indicate an infinite number of other locations. The meaning "inside" is zero, since "outside" can be an infinite number of locations. The following were arbitrarily chosen to be marked with _kon_: "in back of", "among", "right". (Since the left-handed populace is a minority, it was decided to make the core meaning of _tos_ to be "left", rather than "right"; right- handed people have enough benefits not to mind, while left-handed people deserve a break. (But the real point of this was simply to give you a story to make it easy to remember that _tos_ means "left".)) To understand the temporal prepositions (prepositions of time), picture time as a ladder: | 11:00 pm | ------------ | 10:00 pm | ------------ | 9:00 pm | ------------ | 8:00 pm | ------------ | | casko 9:00 pm is "above" 8:00 pm and therefore "after" (cas "above" + ko, "time"). 8:00 pm is "below" 9:00 pm and therefore "before" (koncasko) fesko "starting at" 8:00 is just "off" 8:00 (fes "off" + ko, "time") "at" 8:00 is "on" 8:00 (konfesko) kosko "since" 8:00 is "upward" from 8:00 (kos, "at the top of, up, upward' + ko, "time") "until" 8:00 is "downward" from 8:00 (konkosko) pusko "outside" 8:00 to 9:00 is "outside" the area between 8:00 and 9:00 on the ladder (pus, "outside" + ko, "time") -- "I can meet with you today any time outside (before or after) 8:00 and 9:00." "inside, during, within" 8:00 to 9:00 is inside the area between the hours on the ladder (konpusko) susko "around (approximately)" 8:00 is the area "around" (near) 8:00 on the ladder (sus, "around" + ko, "time") "during" 8:00 to 9:00 is the area "among, between" 8:00 and 9:00 (konsusko) If you picture time as a ladder, you can easily look down to see what you have already climbed (your past). It is harder to see what is above you, as you cannot make your face parallel to the sky, the way you can look down and make it parallel to the ground. So you can only see a little bit in front of you, just as you can only "see" a little bit of the future, compared to millennia of the past. (Different cultures have different ways of picturing time. In Ancient Greece, time was viewed as a river, with the future flowing in from behind them (unseen) to become the past (seen). Safarlin's view of time is not culturally neutral; this view is considered part of Safarlin's culture. Why? Why is time pictured as a ladder in Safarlin? Linguistic expediency  simply because this provides a convenient way to memorize the temporal propositions.) <*> Origin: FOLDER__ - 0017 - language From: JIM HENRY PRIVATE To: CONLANG ML Date: 08/14/96 at 14:36 Re: CONLANG: Prepositionÿÿÿÿÿ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: conlang@diku.dk Jack Durst wrote: JD> On Mon, 12 Aug 1996, JIM HENRY wrote: JD> > Has there been any attempt to systematically categorize JD> > prepositions, or to form the prepositions in a language by a JD> > scheme similar to the Esperanto correlative table? (All I say JD> Alpha Smart does just this. Not corralative table, though. How do you mean? -- that Alpha Smart has a preposition matrix, but not a correlative matrix? -- or that its prepositions don't fit a neat matrix? JD> I chose: inside/outside, facing/not facing (facing away from), JD> over/under. By adding inflections to the basic locative/temporal JD> preposition root, -val- one can form all sorts of neat prepositions. I'll need to add facing toward/away from to the preposition analysis. I think I'm going to include this in an IAL within the world of the Thau, Llegisia et al.; some linguists within this world are going to take an existing trade-language, a pidgin that has evolved naturally, and expand it into something like Lojban and something like Esperanto. First I have to do more work on the primary languages of the various peoples, though. -- jim.henry@silver.com "Apologies if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings." - Twirlip of the Mists, in _A Fire Upon the Deep_ by Vernor Vinge. --- þ RM 1.31 3176 þ Go for baroque. <*> Origin: FOLDER__ - 0017 - language From: JIM HENRY PRIVATE To: CONLANG ML Date: 08/14/96 at 14:36 Re: CONLANG: Prepositionÿÿÿÿÿ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ To: conlang@diku.dk Markku Kuoppassa wrote: MK> On Mon, 12 Aug 96, Jim Henry wrote: MK> > Has there been any attempt to systematically categorize MK> > prepositions, or to form the prepositions in a language by a MK> > scheme similar to the Esperanto correlative table? (All I say MK> I have little to add, Jim -- it was a *really* good summary, according to MK> opinion. In fact, if you look on the locative case system of Avar, an MK> Ibero-Caucasian language, in which there are three basic series of locativ I plan to - next time I'm up in Atlanta and have access to a real library. My college library is ok for general linguistics, but has little on specific languages other than western European ones. MK> 1 relation to something's surface MK> 2 contiguity to something MK> 3 inclusion in something MK> 4 being underneath something MK> 5 position in something I probably ought to add a distinction between "location within" and "inclusion within" -- a distinction between contained: container and part:whole relations -- to the system. Not sure about contact vs. contiguity - in what cases do you think it would be a useful distinction? MK> Nevertheless, I probably shall include it in my new MK> conlang approach, which I am working on busily at the moment (shall not sa MK> anything about it, yet, apart from that trees play a quite important role MK> ). ! I'm looking forward to hearing about that when you're ready to tell us. MK> You pointed out perfectly, that with the spatial even the temporal "prepos MK> are practicable, and, according to my personal experience, the same can be MK> about the personal system. Within this, "you" e.g. would be the person in MK> of the speaker, while "he" or "she" could be the person in between "you" a MK> speaker, and so on. In fact, I think much of reality could be described in MK> of spatial orientation. I know of some researchers (even presented on the Hmm... I know a lot of natlangs use some of the same prepositions for spatial and temporal relations, but if one is building a matrix system for prepositions, I don't see any reason not to mark the difference explicitly. Personal pronouns are iffy; "you" being in front of the speaker is fine, but third-person pronouns could be "the person on the speaker's left" (or right, or behind) just as easily as the person between the speaker and hearer. All of them would be equally valid metaphors. (Or maybe not metaphors. One could use one or several of those forms depending on where the antecedent of the pronoun is standing -- but if he isn't present at all, and one doesn't know where he is -- what then? Just a third-person pronoun unmarked for location, I guess. Or one could affix a relationship, temporal, or property preposition to the pronoun - whatever would be most useful in singling out which of the possible antecedent nouns the pronoun refers to.) Demonstrative pronouns (such as "here, there") would be a more fruitful avenue for expanding the system, especially if we added distance markers as Michael Rouse suggested in his message. -- jim.henry@silver.com "Apologies if I am repeating obvious conclusions. My only gateway onto the Net is very expensive, and I miss many important postings." - Twirlip of the Mists, in _A Fire Upon the Deep_ by Vernor Vinge. --- þ RM 1.31 3176 þ "He shall be called Trismegistus, brother." <*> Origin: FOLDER__ - 0017 - language From: JACK DURST PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 08/13/96 at 03:21 Re: CONLANG: Prepositionÿÿÿÿÿ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ÿ@TO :jim.henry N ÿ@FROM :spynx@sierra.net N ÿ@UMSGID :; Tue , 13 Aug 1996 12:20:09 +0200 Received: by diamond.sierra.net id AA16333 (5.67b8/IDA-1.5 for conlang@diku.dk); Tue, 13 Aug 1996 03:21:35 -0700 Date: Tue, 13 Aug 1996 03:21:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Jack Durst To: JIM HENRY Cc: conlang@diku.dk Subject: Re: CONLANG: Prepositions In-Reply-To: <8C642BA.0385000EB9.uuout@silver.com> Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-conlang@diku.dk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: Jack Durst On Mon, 12 Aug 1996, JIM HENRY wrote: > > > Has there been any attempt to systematically categorize > prepositions, or to form the prepositions in a language by a > scheme similar to the Esperanto correlative table? (All I say > applies equally to postpositions, of course, and to some extent > to case markers.) > > A fair number of prepositions can be usefully described and > produced by a scheme such as that I describe below, but some > elude categorization, or require special treatment. Alpha Smart does just this. Not corralative table, though. > > I'll first analyze spatial prepositions. > > Take the basic locative (0) as primary. This can, without any > further specification, mean generally "at", or "in", "around," > "throughout," and so forth - but only (so far) in the physical > meanings of the English prepositions. > > Next, combine various directions, in some sort of axis system... > it can be absolute (e.g., north/south...) or relative to > the speaker, subject of sentence, or most likely object of > preposition (e.g., left/right and front/back); in either case you'd > also want up/down. A special case is "opposite" - the reverse > direction from the relative direction of the object of > preposition and the subject of the sentence. That was awkward; > here's another attempt. The "opposite" direction is that > direction that the subject of the sentence would have to travel in, > in order to pass through the object of the preposition and > continue on the other side. (This is, as shown below, in order > to handle such prepositions as "across," "beyond," "through," > etc.) It needs better name, but I'm not sure what name to use. I chose: inside/outside, facing/not facing (facing away from), over/under. By adding inflections to the basic locative/temporal preposition root, -val- one can form all sorts of neat prepositions. > > Divide motion along each of these directions into toward (+) and > away (-). Mark further for interior (e.g. in, into) vs. exterior (e.g. > at the outside, to the outside), as with the Finnish locative cases, > and for contact or proximity (e.g., at vs. near, on vs. above). > (The contact/proximity and interior/exterior opposition is > probably meaningless with nouns whose referents don't have > distinct boundaries, though.) I'll have to organize just such a table. Thanks for the idea! Sincerely, Jack Durst Spynx@sierra.net [this posting written in Net English] <*> Origin: FOLDER__ - 0017 - language From: MARKKU KUOPPASSA PRIVATE To: JIM HENRY Date: 08/13/96 at 22:25 Re: CONLANG: Prepositionÿÿÿÿÿ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ÿ@TO :jim.henry N ÿ@FROM :AlterSchwede@t-online.de N ÿ@UMSGID : N From AlterSchwede@t-online.de Tue Aug 13 13:34:37 1996 Received: from mailout01.btx.dtag.de (mailout01.btx.dtag.de [194.25.2.149]) by altmail.holonet.net with SMTP id NAA08971; Tue, 13 Aug 1996 13:34:37 -0700 Received: from ermail01.btx.dtag.de ([172.16.35.2]) by mailout01.btx.dtag.de wi th smtp (S3.1.29.1) id ; Tue, 13 Aug 96 22:31 MET DST Received: by ermail01.btx.dtag.de with (S3.1.29.1) id ; Tue, 13 Aug 96 22:30 MET DST Message-Id: Date: Tue, 13 Aug 96 22:25 +0100 From: AlterSchwede@t-online.de (Markku Kuoppassa) X-Sender: 0575392067-0001@t-online.de (Klaus-Gerd Kuhlmann) Subject: RE: CONLANG: Prepositions To: jim.henry@silver.com Cc: conlang@diku.dk On Mon, 12 Aug 96, Jim Henry wrote: > Has there been any attempt to systematically categorize > prepositions, or to form the prepositions in a language by a > scheme similar to the Esperanto correlative table? (All I say > applies equally to postpositions, of course, and to some extent > to case markers.) I have little to add, Jim -- it was a *really* good summary, according to my opinion. In fact, if you look on the locative case system of Avar, an Ibero-Caucasian language, in which there are three basic series of locative cas e markers (A-C), with five sub-series (1-5) each, you will see how near you came the reality of languages in which the prepositional categorisation is more obvious than in English, for example: A position B motion towards a focus C motion away from a focus 1 relation to something's surface 2 contiguity to something 3 inclusion in something 4 being underneath something 5 position in something The late SLAS operated with a categorical system very similar to the above and the one you describe in your posting, with each of the categories you presented represented by a single phoneme -- I am sorry that nobody ever will see the results, which were quite stunning, just as you said: there are many spatial concepts expressible that cannot be expressed with many prepositions in natural languages. But -- and you said this, too -- this system maybe is applicable to philosophical (or, at least, semi-philosophical languages, as SLAS was intended to be such a language) only. Nevertheless, I probably shall include it in my ne w conlang approach, which I am working on busily at the moment (shall not say anything about it, yet, apart from that trees play a quite important role in it ). Perhaps I contact you later on in order to exchange some ideas about what other spatial concepts could be included. You pointed out perfectly, that with the spatial even the temporal "preposition s" are practicable, and, according to my personal experience, the same can be said about the personal system. Within this, "you" e.g. would be the person in front of the speaker, while "he" or "she" could be the person in between "you" and th e speaker, and so on. In fact, I think much of reality could be described in term s of spatial orientation. I know of some researchers (even presented on the Internet) from a great number of different disciplines, and among them linguistic, who all have in common the basic conception of "spatial reasoning". Anyone who is interested may search for SPACENET. I for myself will probably de al more intensively with this topic later on. Just now I am recovering, and this is not bad, either... ## O ## Best regards, ### -|- ### #### / \ #### MARKKU KUOPPASSA ############### AlterSchwede@t-online.de <*>