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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_.
><...> >(Can't help much with the Caucasian scripts; as for historical phonetics, >try this site: http://starling.rinet.ru/texts/texts.htm - the 'Caucasian' >section; you'll probably have to download their fonts first: >http://starling.rinet.ru/Techno.htm)
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. ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com