Re: Reflexive (was Re: Help on Verbs...)

On Fri, 12 Nov 1999, Dr. David E. Bell wrote:

> > From: Tom Wier
>
> > The only real clitic-y form in the English language (AFAIK) is the
> > so-called genetive case ending, <'s>, which functions on the phrasallevel
> > rather than the wordlevel.
>
>
> What about -n't in couldn't?
Yes. And many of the auxiliary verbs in English have clitic forms as
well--what's more, they are second position clitics. This is actually a
related issue to the V2 thing. The thought is that in Germanic, finite
verbs were clitics (because they were stressless) and eventually
migrated to the second position of the sentence. In time, finite verbs
acquired stress, but by then the 2nd position phenomena had been pretty
firmly entrenched. English still has 2nd position phenomena (auxiliaries
and negation), but regular verbs have been liberated.

I'll have to check my copy of Prokosch to be sure that this is the
standard story, but it's in my office and I'm not there again until
Monday.

Dirk

--
Dirk Elzinga
dirk.elzinga@m.cc.utah.edu