the word "as"
"withstands a great deal of scrutiny... [It is] a word that, according to the linguist Ann Banfield, isn't even, properly speaking, a word at all"
More properly a "hyperfunctional element," operating "ambiguously"--"which is to say that its functions aren't always mutually exclusive"
see the long list on 146, demonstrating how "as" can serve as a pronoun, a preposition, an adverb, or a conjunction; how it can register temporal relativity and causative relativity
in short, "As is a site of relationships" (also 146)