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Re: THEORY: Ergativity and polypersonalism

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Thursday, January 20, 2005, 8:40
Quoting # 1 <salut_vous_autre@...>:

> Henrik Theiling wrote: > > > > > Moi j'l'aime bien ce film. > > > > -------- > > > > ^ > > > > \_ verb with subject & object agreement > > > > > > > > > > That is not the same thing that's a contraction of 2 pronouns > > > >Please read Christoph's explanations in the archives, he's French and > >he's a linguist and he's surely more competent on this matter than I > >am. > > > >Arguing with me is futile. :-) > > With me too :-P > > I'd like to know where is that archive, could you give me the website where > it is? > > I'm also a native french speaker so I know what I'm talking about, even if > i'm not a linguist > > > Roger Mills worte: > >Christophe's point, as I recall, was always about _spoken_ French, in > >which > >"je l'aime" is indeed a phonological unit or "word", /ZlEm/. Note too > >that > >the various parts never occur as independent words: /Z/ /l/ (one could > >say > >that the schwas are predictable, thus non-phonemic!) /Em/ etc. Also, of > >course, I like to think he was being only semi-serious :-)))))))) > > yes these part [Z] and [l] occur in independant words, before a vowel > > the schwas are simply dropped before a vowel > > so it is usual to reduce these words so in "j'l'aime bien ce film" the real > form is " je l'aime bien ce film", "le" is already contracted and is an > independant word but the "j'" is simply a faster way to say "je" by reducing > it in a way it can but somewhere it doesn't
[snip] Your examples do not seem to give any reason not to believe that "je" is a verbal prefix; it always appears at the start of the "verbal complex". Andreas