OT: Semi-OT: LOOK-BACK: Re: Cases, again

Digging through unread emails in my archive again ...

On Friday 19 March 2004 22:00, Roger Mills wrote:

 > Ray Brown wrote:
 > > I say "..between you and me" but, alas, nearly all my
 > > colleagues at work say "..between you and I". Everyday
 > > I hear things like "He'll see you and I this afternoon"
 > > (Ach-y-fi!!!). I've even heard horrors like "Please
 > > return the key to Mr X or to I" and - and they're
 > > supposed to educators  : =(

Waaaah!

 > > I was beginning to think that only me, my wife & H.M.
 > > the Queen were the only only mortals who used "X and
 > > me" in all contexts except as subject of finite verbs
 > > where we say "X and I" correctly. I must now add
 > > certainly Roger and Joe (and, hopefully, all
 > > conlangers) to ever decreasing band of the
 > > 'enlightened'.

Me, too. Though of course we learnt that in Standard English
it must must must be "I, too".

 > Well, we're in good company, I guess :-))))  It's what
 > comes of paying attention in English class all those
 > years ago.  I cringe when I hear some superstar etc. on
 > the telly say "....{preposition} you and I".  Aargh.

I second this. I always thought of "you and me" as one
expression.

 > Now if we could just revive "whom"......but I think most
 > agree that that's a lost cause.

Maybe this is out-of-fashion and sounds bookish, but we
learnt it that way. I use it! If thou believest it or not.
Although our English books only talked about "who + do +
verb", my English teacher wanted us to use "whom" because
she thought it is better style. And I have not yet
been told not to use it by any other English teacher I've
had.

===================================================

On Thursday 18 March 2004 20:41, Ray Brown wrote:

 > > And, yes, my intention for
 > > my conlang is to have prepositions, but it never
 > > occurred to me that the exact meaning of the
 > > preposition could be dependent upon the case of the
 > > noun it is being used with.
 >
 > Oh yes, and it can be quite idiomatic. To give a couple
 > of examples from ancient Greek:
 >
 > dia + ACC. = on account of
 > dia + GEN. = through
 >
 > meta + ACC. = after
 > meta + GEN. = with

That goes immediately into my treasure chest ;-) ... I meant
I'll mark this mail as important.

===================================================

On Tue 30 Mar 2004 22:23, taliesin the storyteller wrote:

 > * Mark J. Reed said on 2004-03-30 22:13:11 +0200
 >
 > > On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 08:14:27PM +0100, Ray Brown
 > > wrote:
 > > > > Or maybe the article inflects for case instead of
 > > > > the noun? Are there any real languages that do
 > > > > something like this?
 > >
 > > Yes, Basque.  Bare nouns cannot be inflected; only noun
 > > phrases can be, and the inflection goes on the
 > > "determiner".
 >
 > And when there is no standalone "determiner" in the noun
 > phrase, a determining clitic/suffix attaches ityself to
 > the leftmost word in the noun phrase (unless this is a
 > name of some sort). Really elegant system, I'm tempted to
 > use it in some conlang or other (other than Taruven)...

And this one goes into the treasure chest, too :-)

It's not that I'm planning to start another, different
conlang (i.e. different from Ayeri and Daléian), but it's
good to keep things that look interesting because they
could get handy in future projects. So don't throw away
everything! My archive of the List already has 3505
messages as of today, I'm collecting since 12 Sept 2003.
Actually, the counter should be at 3508, but somehow three
mails went to /dev/null when importing my mailbox from OE6
to KMail.

--
Eri silveváng aibannama padangin.
Nivaie evaenain eri ming silvoieváng caparei.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Le Petit Prince
  -> http://www.beckerscarsten.de/?conlang=ayeri