Re: EAK - two problems

I was wondering, what if the "-io" were completely detached and formed
a separate word à la Latinate "de" instead, so that it became,

for "my father's mother":
1. to mètró io to emé patró
2. to mètró io to patró [io to emé/eméio]
3. to mètró io patró [io emé/eméio]

and for "the mother of the father of the children"
A. to mètró io to patró io to paído(lao)
B. to mètró io patró io paído

If "-io" had to attach to the definite article then by all means,
which gives "to mètró to-io emé patró" etc.

The alternative forms without the intermediate "to"s (how on earth
does one punctuate such things anyway) are just a suggestion -- that,
like English, the articles all end up getting dropped except for the
head noun. Which could then plausibly newly give us "io paído to mètró
io patró", whose meaning is disambiguated by some rule that stated
that all preposed genitive phrases are to be put all the way at the
end of the string.

Just a thought. After all I know only the most basic of Modern Greek
and nothing of Ancient Greek, so I shall leave the real debating to
the pros. (:

Eugene

2007/5/22, R A Brown <ray@...>:
> Philip Newton wrote:
> > On 5/22/07, Eric Christopherson <rakko@...> wrote:
> >
> >> It feels strange to me how the possessive marker doesn't always
> >> attach to the head, but I'm not exactly sure what feels wrong about
> >> that; I know there are clitics in other languages that don't always
> >> attach to heads.
> >
> > Don't some Latin clitics (e.g. -que) work like this, too, always
> > attaching to the first part of the second component rather than the
> > "main" part, whatever that is?
>
>
> They do.
>
> [snip]
> >
> > As Ray said, one difference was that you could add -io not only to
> > _to_ but also to arbitrary other elements, such as indefinite nouns,
> > adjectives modifying such nouns, or pronouns. With _tou_ you couldn't
> > do that, unless the rationale was to add -u always, or something like
> > that.
>
> True.
>
> > So _to-io_ looks more like article+clitic (or other particle) to me,
>
> That's what I was hoping      :)
>
> > while _tou_ looks more like an inflected word (at least
> > diachronically). Even if _to-io_ is related diachronically to an
> > inflected _toio_.
>
> Exactly my feelings.

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