Re: Genitive relationships (WAS: Construct States)

Brian Betty wrote:
> It is also archaic in some phonological ways, too: I understand the
> original form the the verb "to ask" is something like "axan" (to 'aks');
> Black English has maintained the older form while standard English dialects
> have the nouveau "ask."
Not quite.  The original form was "askan", but many dialects of Old
English contained "aksan", and that dialectal variant either survived
into Black English, or was recreated (I've heard a theory that it was
because of phonological restrictions in African languages, I suspect
that both factors played a role)