Re: Theory about the evolution of languages

Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:

> On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 15:18:35 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
>
> >Quoting "J. 'Mach' Wust" <j_mach_wust@...>:
> >
> >> A clitic of what word?
> >
> >? I do not understand this question.
>
> Clitics are words that are phonetically melted with others, e.g. the
> present third person singular of to be's often cliticized. The 'Saxon
> genitive'-s is not a word phonetically melted with others; therefore, it's
> not a clitic, but rather an ending.
Exactly what is a "word" here, and why isn't the possesive _'s_ one? If you
would insist that a "word" can stand on its own, your definition of "clitic"
does not mesh with those I'm familiar with from this list.


> >> In German, there's a similar inconsistence of the placing of the
> >> Genitive-s, compare the following phrases:
> >>
> >> _Onkel Dagoberts Millionen_ 'uncle Dagobert's millions'
> >> _die Millionen unseres Onkels Dagobert_ 'the millions of our uncle
> >> Dagobert'
> >>
> >> (examples by pr. Hentschel)
> >
> >How is the English placement inconsistent?
>
> Sure it isn't. I should have said: Similar discrepancies like the one
> pointed out between English and German (in order to show that the English
> _'s_ isn't a genitive) are found within the German genitive.
Your German example does not seem particularly similar to what goes on in
English (and Swedish). In particular, the genitival marker stays on a noun
refering to the possessor (taking _unser*es*_ to be mere agreement).

                                             Andreas