>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
I agree. My hypothesis is that case endings evolved in PIE to better
distinguish substantives in the subject from adjacent substantives in the
predicate. With the development of SVO verbs could do this well enough that
case endings could slowly erode with little loss of clarity. ~alypius