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

YMMV?
Eugene

On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 7:09 PM, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...>wrote:

> Not in my lect, but YMMV.
>
>
> On Oct 19, 2008, at 5:24 AM, Eugene Oh wrote:
>
>  Oh, I see now. But as I replied in another mail to Philip Newton, the
>> sentence cn be interpreted as  "(the existence of) battling gods was not
>> unusual), couldn't it?
>> Eugene
>>
>> On Sun, Oct 19, 2008 at 6:58 AM, Eric Christopherson <rakko@charter.net
>> >wrote:
>>
>>  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@charter.net
>>>>
>>>>> 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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