Re: YAGGT (was Re: Juvenile fooleries (was Re: Neanderthal and PIE (Long!)))
| From: | Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> |
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| Date: | Friday, October 17, 2008, 18:54 |
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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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