Re: Case

Sally Caves wrote:

> SVO languages seem the ones most likely to lose their case endings and go
> the analytic route because you have a natural separator with the verb in the
> middle.  But SOV and OSV languages would probably hang on to them when
> juxtapositions can be confusing.
Those juxtapositions cause much of the syntactic pain in SVO, judging
by Rick Harrison's Vorlin and my own attempts to define what happens
when nominal phrases abut. Is it relative, appositive, or genitive?

The book you want is on the table.
11111111 222

You the writer put it there.
111 2222222222

It's on the table top.
        111111111 222

Not the greatest examples, but anyway. AFMC, it prefers
to call the consecutive noun phrases genitive, always.
Even in English, I don't like relatives without "that/who/which",
or apposition without clear separation by heavy commas/pauses.