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Re: Genitives and Possessive Adjectives

From:Chris Bates <christopher.bates@...>
Date:Thursday, February 26, 2004, 9:12
Thanks all for the replies... I know I shouldn't be but I am actually
surprised that natlangs do this. *shrugs* I guess I need to learn some
more languages... As for the blond, blonde thing, all I meant was that
it's an almost case of adjective gender agreement since in writing blond
is applied to masculine or inanimate things, and blonde is applied to
women, but you don't pronounce the difference anyway so it doesn't
really count (plus most people don't bother anymore if they ever did and
just write blond all the time).

>> >> Romani possessives work that way: >> >> "Like its cognate morphemes elsewhere in NIA, > > > 'sright - it works like that in Hindi/Urdu and other related langs. > > [snip] > The 'genitive' of Hindi 'mard' (man) is: > 'mardkā' nom. sing. masc. > 'mardke' oblique sing. masc.; plural masc. (all cases) > 'madkī' feminine sing. & pl. > > The same feature was found in ancient Luwian (in Asia Minor) where > possessives were adjectives formed from nouns with the endings -assis or > -assas (the final -s being nom. sing. ending IIRC). > > So, not only is it workable in theory, it has been & still is workable in > practice :) > > Ray > =============================================== > http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown > ray.brown@freeuk.com (home) > raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk (work) > =============================================== > "A mind which thinks at its own expense will always > interfere with language." J.G. Hamann, 1760 >