Re: cases

En réponse à Pavel Iosad <pavel_iosad@...>:

>
> Or the French of the 14th century (is there a Middle French?),
Yes. But there is jsut one problem: the two case system had already disappeared
(even in writing) by the middle of the 14th century. You should talk about Old
French if you want to talk about the two-case system :))) .

 whioch
> had a nicely compact system:
>
>         Sg.     Pl.
> Direct  roy     roys
> Oblique roys    roy
>
But awfully ambiguous, with only one mark for all those forms (and a mark which
was already falling from speech). And it was fully working only for masculine
nouns (as well as those special nouns which had a spcial form for the singular
subject, like:
        Sg.     Pl.
Direct  ber     barons
Oblique barons  baron)
Feminine nouns already had reduced this declension into a singular vs. plural
alternation.

Christophe.

http://rainbow.conlang.free.fr

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