Re: Theory about the evolution of languages
| From: | J. 'Mach' Wust <j_mach_wust@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Wednesday, August 18, 2004, 14:13 |
|---|
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.
I think you could consider it to be a possessive ending if you don't want
to think of it as a genitive, but from a historical point of view there's
no doubt it is (a relict of) a genitive.
>> 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.
g_0ry@_^s:
j. 'mach' wust
Replies