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

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@...>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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