Re: YAGGT (was Re: Juvenile fooleries (was Re: Neanderthal and PIE (Long!)))

Me? I meant in English.

On Oct 18, 2008, at 4:36 PM, Eugene Oh wrote:

> Do you mean in German or in English? Oh dear. Although Lars M's
> explanation
> was quite thorough -- thanks!
>
> On Fri, Oct 17, 2008 at 7:54 PM, Eric Christopherson
> <rakko@...>wrote:
>
>> On Oct 17, 2008, at 3:56 AM, Lars Mathiesen wrote:
>>
>>  2008/10/16 Eugene Oh <un.doing@...>
>>>
>>>> Christophe's post contained the clause "battling gods was not
>>>> considered
>>>> unusual", which made me a little confused for a while: since
>>>> when did it
>>>> become standard fare for humans to challenge the preeminence of
>>>> deities?
>>>> Then it struck me, after approximately 5 milliseconds.
>>>>
>>>
>> Indeed, the only way to interpret "battling gods was ..." would be
>> as you
>> did. If he had said "battling gods were ...", "battling" would be a
>> participle rather than a gerund.
>>
>>
>>  It also reminded me
>>>> of the other thread about participles. I gave it a brief
>>>> thought, and
>>>> don't
>>>> think Latin, Greek or any of the Romance languages have such an
>>>> ambiguity.
>>>> Neither do Chinese, Japanese or Korean. Does German? Or is
>>>> English is
>>>> only
>>>> language with such a muddle?
>>>>
>>>
>>>

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