Re: Theory about the evolution of languages

On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 17:51:46 -0400, John Cowan <jcowan@...> wrote:

>J. 'Mach' Wust scripsit:
>
>> 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.
>
>Clitics can also be endings that have come unmoored, as it were.  In
>this case, "'s'" can find itself following almost any kind of word,
>not just a noun.  H.L. Mencken collected the following example:
>
> That-there umbrella's the young lady I go with's.
>
>The first "'s" is cliticized "is"; the second one is the Saxon genitive,
>now attached to a preposition (!) and meaning, for the benefit of
>all you furriners:
>
> That umbrella there belongs to (or is otherwise associated
> with) the young lady with whom I have a romantic association.
Thanks for this information. I didn't know that there were two different
uses of the term 'clitic'.


>> >> _Onkel Dagoberts Millionen_ 'uncle Dagobert's millions'
>> >> _die Millionen unseres Onkels Dagobert_ 'the millions of our uncle
>> >> Dagobert'
>
>I think this is simply apposition, and a noun in apposition to a
>genitive, at least in the Germanic languages, is not itself genitive.
>But there is no question of the -s being attached to anything but a
>noun.
If I understand you correctly, you're saying the following: If it's the noun
in apposition that bears the ending, not the one it's 'apposed' to, then
this (kinda unmoored) ending can be called a 'clitic'. Like this, the German
genitive ending in _Onkel Dagoberts Millionen_ is a clitic suffix, but in
_die Millionen unseres Onkels Dagobert_, it's not a clitic suffix.

kry@s:
j. 'mach' wust

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