Re: OT: Corpses, etc. (was: Re: Gender in conlangs (was: Re: Umlauts (was Re: Elves and Ill Bethisad)))

Quoting Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>:

> At 10:28 AM 11/11/03 +0100, you wrote:
> >Quoting Isidora Zamora <isidora@...>:
> >
> > > Andreas wrote:
> > >
> > > >Swedish, of course, packs duplicate definite marking into every other
> > > >sentence!
> > >
> > > How does it do that?  I don't think I'm familiar with Danish doing
> anything
> > > similar.
> >
> >I think this particular nicety is restricted to Swedish and Norwegian.
>
> I can verify that Danish definitely doesn't do anything of the sort.  I
> thought that using plural adjectives to agree with singular definate nouns
> (which I can see from your example below is also done in Swedish) was kinda
> strange, but using both markers for definiteness might beat that for
> strangeness, or perhaps not - it's no worse than what you have to go
> through in French to negate something.
You think of it as a pl adjective? Sure it could be by form, but I would never
think of it like that.

Perhaps I can convince you of the faultcy of your analysis by pointing out
that while you indeed get the same form of the adj in _den stora bilen_ "the
big car" and _de stora bilarna_ "the big cars", you don't in _den store
mannen_ "the big man" and _de stora männen_ "the big men"?

> >Well, say you've got a noun, f'rinstance _en bil_ "a car"; the definite
> form
> >is _bilen_ "the car", with a suffix. If you instead had a nominalized
> >adjective, say _en stor_ "a big one",
>
> I think that this is a difference between between Swedish and
> Danish.  (Maybe a Dane on the list can confirm it.)  All of my instincts
> for constructing Danish tell me that the Danish for "a big one" is "en stor
> en," exactly the same as in English, where you must use the pronoun "one"
> with the adjective.  Further instincts tell me that the definate would be
> "den store en," with necessary adjective agreement.
In Swedish either goes when indefinite; _en stor_ or _en stor en_ (but not
neuter **_ett stort ett_, for some reason). The later form strikes me as more
informal. The definite form can only be _den stora_ (or masculine _den store_
or neuter _det stora_).

                                                     Andreas

Reply