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Re: Construct case and genitive pronouns

From:Henrik Theiling <theiling@...>
Date:Friday, August 26, 2005, 22:38
Hi!

Carsten Becker <naranoieati@...> writes:
> Looking at the current state of my Tarsyanian grammar, I > wondered if it would be necessary to have possessive > pronouns in the construct state. I can't imagine a sentence > where the possessive pronoun is the non-head (How do you > call this, BTW? Foot?) of the NP.
Ha, good thought! Even if it were possible (maybe in 'Is Mary's ego well?'), I must take a note to forbid it in S11. S11 will also have construct state (it solves all my problems!) and it will be totally irregular -- some nouns only exist in construct state and others do not have one. Pronouns are a great class of words to forbid construct state. But maybe I'll not have pronouns... Anyway, I think it is at least perfectly feasible to not have construct state of pronouns.
> I think if I strictly applied the construct state, the possessive > pronouns would be of no use except in answers like "Mine".
But there's not need for construct state here. Just genitive.
> On the other hand, why can't I have construct case with nouns but > genitive case with pronouns?
You can, it's a conlang. Then 'my book' would be doubly marked (I-GEN book-CONSTR)? Nice! :-)
> Is that an anadewism, by any chance?
Fo_o Dunno. **HEnrik