Re: OT: Two language change questions

In reply to question 2, because I have never thought about question 1 and
won't pretend to have:
Yes, Japanese does allow a pronoun in that position. You can say "hanareta
watashi", I who left, although "tabeta kare" would not normally be said as a
phrase unto itself, and would be liable to misinterpretation as "tabeta
kare:" which means "the curry that I ate". In this way Japanese is a little
absolutive (and indeed I have wondered whether it might once have been an
absolutive language, but as I don't have access to the necessary resources,
nor do I know where to start even if I had...).

Other examples include

- Nusumu watashi - I who always steals/am stealing etc. ("nusumu" is here
intransitive as in English)
- Nusumu jitensha - The bicycle that I am about to steal (or, interpreting
the verb intransitively, the bicycle that steals)
- Nusunda jitensha - the bicycle that I stole (I, unless otherwise indicated
by context)
- Nusumareta jitensha - the bicycle that was stolen from me (passive voice)

You can also insert an object explicitly and couple the resulting clause
with a subject:

Hon wo yonda watashi - I who have read a book

Whereas simply "yonda watashi" would not normally be said but will
automatically be interpreted to mean "I who have read" because of common
sense.

Eugene

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:57 AM, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>wrote:

> I've been wondering about two things wrt language change lately:
>
> 1. Does it ever happen that a language which differentiates definite and
> indefinite (e.g. by articles) loses that distinction?
>
> My hunch is yes -- after all, there are lots of languages in the world with
> no definiteness distinction; so, in any such language, it is either the case
> that a) the language and its ancestors NEVER had the distinction, or b) the
> language or its ancestors at some point had it, but lost it. It seems to me
> that in the millennia of evolution of each such language, it is unlikely
> that the feature "does/does not distinguish definiteness" could remain
> completely stable.
>
> However, I am having trouble imagining the gradual steps involved in the
> loss of the distinction. I know that sometimes English uses the definite
> article to refer to things which aren't all that definite, especially in
> idioms (but then again, they're idioms!), so I can sort of imagine it, but
> not quite.
>
> (E.g. "doing the dishes" and "doing the laundry", where IMO the exact
> identity of said dishes or laundry  isn't really pertinent; "that takes the
> cake", where the cake is strictly metaphorical; "play/act the fool", which
> seems to me would more "logically" be "play/act [like] a fool".)
>
>
> 2. In some languages (e.g. Japanese) you can juxtapose a noun and a verb
> (or verb-like thing such as an adjective) in such a way that the meaning is
> "the [noun] that <verbs>" or "the <noun> that is <verb>ed" -- without having
> to derive or inflect the verb into a verbal adjective. E.g. Japanese _yonda
> hon_ "a read book, a book which has been read". Is it ever possible in such
> languages to use a pronoun instead of a noun? E.g. Japanese (hypothetical)
> *_tabeta kare_ "he who ate".
>

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