Re: A few natlang questions...
From: | Danny Wier <dawier@...> |
Date: | Friday, June 9, 2000, 20:04 |
>From: Vasiliy Chernov <bc_@...>
>Actually, Russian has almost lost the vocative (there are only a few
>frozen remnants) while preserving the other 6 cases. Bulgarian has lost
>most case distinctions but preserved a separate vocative form.
Whoops, I forgot about that. I just remembered the vocatives for "God" and
"father" (which are _Bog_ > _Boz^e_ and _otec'_ > _otc^e_). And apparently
certain plural forms in -a (rather than -y/-i) for non-neuters is supposedly
a remnant of an old dual number. The dual is not extant in any Slavonic
languages that I know of.
And thank God we got a resident Russian speaker here! (I've been trying to
teach myself off and on.)
>For Sanskrit, yes (with the above corrections). For Germanic, no. For
>Avestan, I don't remember.
I do remember that Avestan has the vocative; I think it also has the same
eight-case system as Sanskrit. (The phonology of Avestan is rather
interesting if any of you haven't researched it. It's the only IE language
other than Welsh that has a voiceless lateral fricative, afaik.
>Actually, Bulgarian substantives may have a distinct form for vocative
>(in Sg. only) and a 'counting form' (used with some numerals) which
>partly stems from ancient nom. du., and partly from gen. sg. (IIRC).
>Besides, written language has the opposition 'nominative vs.
>non-nominative' for the masculine form of article in sg. (see below).
Yeah, the old dual for small numbers. That's in Russian (for 2-4) too of
course, in the form of the genitive singular.
>Bulgarian (and Macedonian) suffixed articles are an innovation.
>Bulgarian article originates from the Proto-Slav demonstrative
>_tU_, _ta_, _to_ used enclitically ('U' is the 'reduced' vowel, _yer_).
>Macedonian developed *three* definite articles (differing in deixis
>degrees) from three demonstratives: _ovU_, _ova_, _ovo_; _tU_, _ta_,
>_to_; _onU_, _ona_, _ono_.
Oh I've read Starostin's North Caucasian work! I don't remember reading
anything about Caucasian script history (neither Georgian nor Armenian are
North Caucasian languages), but some cool stuff on phonology. Anybody
remember the consonant phonology of Ubykh?
DaW.
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