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Re: Theory about the evolution of languages

From:Andreas Johansson <andjo@...>
Date:Wednesday, August 18, 2004, 14:45
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