Re: Just a Little Taste of Judean
From: | Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> |
Date: | Sunday, April 11, 1999, 2:37 |
Steg Belsky wrote:
> So far, i don't think it'll have cases.
> Nouns are descended from Latin's genitive case (like Spanish's are from
> the accusative).
That seems unlikely to me. The genitive was lost very early on in Latin
evolution. Genitive is an oblique case. Typically, when cases are
lost, the core cases (that is, nominative and accusative or ergative and
absolutive, as the case may be) provide the remaining form. Most
probable would be either accusative remaining, as in French, Spanish,
Portuguese, etc., or nominative, as in Italian, Romanian, etc. In fact,
I don't know of any examples, from any families, where a non-core case
was the last remaining.
--
"It's bad manners to talk about ropes in the house of a man whose father
was hanged." - Irish proverb
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