Re: THEORY: Ergativity and polypersonalism

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