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

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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