Re: Genitive relationships (WAS: Construct States)

:

> :
> >Raymond A. Brown wrote:
> .....
> >> Inter alia
> >> - only two genders - masc. & fem.
> >
> >This wasn't something Orin noted.  Lots of languages besidesCeltic and Semitic
> >have only two genders.
>
> Indeed - e.g. the Romance langs (generally, tho Romanian does have a 3rd
> gender), Hindi/ Urdu & the other IE langs of north India.  Therefore, I
> find this "evidence" too circumstantial.
I said he didn't use it as evidence, Ray.  It was your statement.

> .Be that as it may, there were Celts in the northern & north eastern parts
> of the Iberian peninsular at that time.  It is inconceivable that there
> were no contacts between these people.
I don't think the issue is that there was no contact.  If I made that remark,I
retract it as a poor summation of the study.  The issue is what kind of
contact would have resulted in a sharing of core grammar between two
languages so far removed from one another?  I can't imagine that a
mercantile relationship between the two would do it, but that's just my
opinion.  The Welsh and the English lived next to each other
for centuries in various states of enmity and cooperation, and there is
very little trading of core grammar.  Also, the point I remember
Orin made is that despite the similarities in grammar,
there is very little lexical exchange, which seems strange if a creolization
is surmised to have happened.

But really, Ray... you say below that you are not prejudging
Orin, which be true, but you may be prejudging my sorry
account of Orin's work.  If your intent is to point out *my*
weaknesses, then that's one thing.  But if you want a critical
showdown with Gensler, go to the original.  As I remarked  before,
you skeptics should take the matter up with Orin instead
of  wrangling it out with me.  I'd give you his email address if
I knew it, or even if I knew where on earth he was; either in
Germany or back in the States.  Once you get it, report to him,
and not to me, please.  This is just an interesting document that
I promote because Orin is an impressive and compulsive scholar.
And a friend of mine.  I doubt it he'd leave too many stones unturned.

> If Orin denies these contacts he's flying in the face of all known evidence.
Sigh... as I said.... Go read it and stop iffing.

I wrote below:

> A good place to start would be by reading this dissertation,
> >which I
> >hope Orin hashad the good sense to get published.  He spent seventeen years on
> >it, for godsake
>
> Relectantly, I have say that 17 years work is no criterion that the work is
> sound (nor that it is not - I'm _not_ prejudging Orin).
I wasn't saying it was a criterion, Ray, criminently;  I was saying thatafter
seventeen years it behoves him to publish it.  Does everything
have to be an agon with you?   <G>

Actually, my distant friend took that long to get his Ph.D.  I think
he spent fewer years writing the dissertation.  Long stays in
Berkeley are not uncommon.  It took me nine years to get mine
from the same place.  "Death of ambition," the nickname for
life in Berkeley USA.

Sally Caves-- only an amateur linguist.