Re: Case

At 8:29 pm -0500 14/7/99, Nik Taylor wrote:
>Kristian Jensen wrote:
>> Boreanesian gets away with just three cases, which is perhaps the
>> absolute minimum in any language.
>
>What about English's two?
>
Excepting pronouns, Old French also got by on two.  The modern French have
now settled for one (or none?) just like the Italians, Spaniards &
Portuguese - except for those darn personal pronouns!

But Mandarin has only one (or none?) for the pesky pronouns also.  And
Mandarin is ny no means alone.  I'd guess these languages possibly
outnumber those with two or more cases.

Seems to me the absolute minimum is one.  But as that means no case
distinction, does that count as zero?

If you discount the one/zero case languages, then two are most surely the
absolute minimum.

Ray.



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A mind which thinks at its own expense
will always interfere with language.
[J.G.Hamann - 1760]
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