Re: Linguistic term for ease of changing word-class (was: 'out-' affix in conlangs?)
| From: | Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 16:03 |
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Quoting R A Brown <ray@...>:
> Eldin Raigmore wrote:
> > BTW thanks for your posts on that thread!
> >
> > On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 14:04:29 +0200, Benct Philip Jonsson
> > <bpj@...> wrote:
> >> [snip]
> [snip]
[snip]
> [snip]
> >
> >> [snip]
> >> In German and the Scandinavian languages the
> >> adverbal derivation coincides with the neuter
> >> nominative singular of the adjective (which
> >> happens to be a zero morpheme in German but not in
> >> Scandinavian).
>
> One finds this to a limited extend in ancient Greek and Latin (the
> grammar books normally say its the accusative of the neuter; but as that
> is _always_ identical to the nominative, it comes to the same thing). Is
> this an inherited IE phenomenon?
FWIW, Beekes* says that the accusatives of nouns and adjectives often served as
adverbs in PIE, citing examples in Greek, Latin, Gothic, Old Church Slavonic,
and Sanskrit.
Where does, incidentally, the neuter singular indefinite -t in Scandinavian
adjectives come from?
* Comparative Indo-European Linguistics, 1995, p217-8
--
Andreas Johansson