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Re: stress and accusative in Uusisuom

From:Muke Tever <alrivera@...>
Date:Thursday, May 3, 2001, 20:57
From: "Daniel44" <Daniel44@...>
> As for my reference to 'accusative', I may be mistaken. Please help me out > here: > > 'The book is for him' > > In this sentence, in what case is the word 'him'?
That depends on what language's case system you're describing it with. I think in a 'standard average IE case system' it would be in the dative [which generally, IIRC, describes the indirect object, or whatever 'benefits' from the verb, and usually Englishized as 'for': "librum emi tibi" I(NOM) bought a book(ACC) for you(DAT)--excuse my awful Latin], but of course in English we don't have a dative. Any pronoun that is the object of a preposition in English is in the same case, the same as for any object of a verb ['the book is for him'; 'the book enlightened him'; 'she bought him for him'[1]]. If I understand correctly the form is historically the accusative. I don't think there's a standard name for it in the modern language, though. (However I think I have seen 'objective' used.) *Muke! [1] A little stilted, that last one, maybe, but think 'she bought the puppy for her son (not her daughter)'.