Re: R: Re: Degrees of volition in active languages (was Re: Chevraqis: asketch)

T. Smith wrote:

> At 12:56 PM 8/13/2000 +0200, Mangiat wrote:
> >Italian is one of the few languages I know to use articles even with
nouns
> >already determinated by possessives:
> >
> >'il mio libro' - 'my book'
> >'la mia casa' - 'my house' (here there is an exception: you can say 'casa
> >mia' as well)
>
> Does the exception apply to all nouns?  (Can you also say 'libro mio'?)
No. Elsewhere (everywhere else?) it gets a vocative connotation. 'Libro mio'
is used only as vocative, as in 'libro mio, quante volte ti ho letto' (O my
<beloved> book, how many times I've read you! - that sounds almost pathetic
to my ears)

> And is there any pragmatic or functional difference between 'la mia casa'
> and 'casa mia'?  (For instance, does one put more emphasis on the house,
> and the other on the fact that it's _my_ house?  And if so, which is
which?)

This depends on the way you stress the words. 'la MIA casa' would focus on
the possessor. And I've noticed that 'casa mia' is much more used that 'la
mia casa'. Yet 'la mia casa' is used very much as subject, almost never with
preps.

Luca