Re: OT: sorta OT: cases: please help...

On Tue, 11 Dec 2001 12:17:35 +0100, Christophe Grandsire
<christophe.grandsire@...> wrote:

>En réponse à Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>:
>>
>> Not so weird, if you consider the use of _de_ (resembling Gen. a lot)
>> with
>> negations in French. (Christophe? I always make mistakes in French :(
>> )
>
>You're correct about the use of "de" for objects of negative verbs (J'ai
une
>voiture, je n'ai pas de voiture), but I wouldn't consider that to be part
of
>the genitive use of "de", but rather of the partitive use of "de", like "du
>sucre": sugar, even though in this case the definite article is not present
in
>the "de" form.
Actually, I meant one of the uses of the case termed Genetive in Slavic
(as well as many other IE languages, including some ancient Germanic
ones).

There's always a confusion between "cases" proper used in specific
languages and the (post-)Fillmorean metalanguage categories used in
assorting various functions of nominal actants.

My point was that the various uses of _de_ seem to match very well
many uses of Genetive in Slavic, which is indeed remarkable.


Basilius