Re: Genitive relationships (WAS: Construct States)

Sally Caves scripsit:

> 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.
We really know almost nothing about grammar-sharing; there is
that one village in India where everyone speaks both a dialect
of Kannada (Dravidian) and Marathi (Indo-Aryan), but the
two languages are separate only in lexicon: they match up
morpheme for morpheme, constituent for constituent.

Here there is no lexical borrowing, and the two languages are
felt as distinct solely because of their distinct lexicons.
Yet each is continuous with more "normal" dialects of Kannada
and Marathi.  Urdu is involved in this too; the local version
of Urdu matches almost as well with the other local dialects.

As for Welsh and English, Tolkien's article on the subject pointed
out the curious use, in both OE and OW (MW?), of two verbs
for "be" (present tense), one normal (am, eart, ist, and all that),
one future/consuetudinal (using the "b-" stem).  The verbs
themselves, of course, are inherited, but the grammatical use
of them is neatly parallel.  The other Gmc languages do not
have this.  Likewise the be + ing progressive is English-only
among the Gmc languages, but the Celtic languages all (?) have it.

--
John Cowan      http://www.ccil.org/~cowan              cowan@ccil.org
        You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
        You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
                Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)