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Re: inalienable possession

From:Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
Date:Friday, November 20, 1998, 19:13
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