Re: inalienable possession

Sally Caves wrote:
> Just to reverse the terms of this discussion (about postpositions becoming
> case endings)... if the verb was final, wouldn't this account for the
> number of verbs in Germanic that begin with prepositions?  I'm thinking
> of that old standby
>
>         Harold him with feaht
>         Harold fought with him
>
> that is always invoked as an example of SOV and postposition in OE.
> Wouldn't this have given rise to the preposition/verb combination?
> withstand, undergo, etc. etc.  I look at this sentence and wonder if the
> proper division is not "with fought" rather than "him with."
Quite possibly, and Germanic langs aren't the only languages with such
combinations, consider Latin _convenire_, _invenire_, etc.   So, I can
imagine "Harold him with feaht" being a postposition (the only way to
confirm this would be if you could also say "Him with Harold feaht" or
some other rearranging), being re-analyzed as a prefix, so going from
"Harold him-with feaht" becoming "Harold him with-feaht", i.e., *"Harold
with-fought him"

--
"It has occured to me more than once that holy boredom is good and
sufficient reason for the invention of free will." - "Lord Leto II"
(Dune Chronicles, by Frank Herbert)
http://members.tripod.com/~Nik_Taylor/X-Files/
ICQ #: 18656696
AOL screen-name: NikTailor