Re: EAK - two problems

Eric Christopherson wrote:
> On May 21, 2007, at 8:27 AM, R A Brown wrote:
[snip]
>> I am proposing abstracting io (ιο) /jO/ (I had a week or so back
>> decided that iota before an initial vowel should be [j]) as a
>> possessive particle. It would come after the element in a  possessive
>> phrase, e.g.
>> to eme-io patró = my father
>> to to-io eme-io patró mètró = my father's mother
>
> I'm curious why you don't put it after the whole noun phrase, or  maybe
> after the head, especially since part of the motivation was the
> 2nd-declension -oio and this would result in nouns ending in -o (or
> other endings? so far I only know about -o) plus -io. Is it that  you're
> trying to avoid <to to>?
Exactly!

[snip]

>
> Also, it seems like this scheme would mean that <to-io> occurs very
> often. Earlier you rejected <tou> for the same role because it seems  to
> be an inflection, but couldn't you say the same of <to-io>? (Or,
> conversely, couldn't you say that neither one is inflected? My view  on
> <tou> is that, although it may be *derived* from a differently-
> inflected form of the same thing <to> is derived from, synchronically
> they could be two separate words, rather than inflected forms of one.)
It's true _to_ and _tou_ could synchronically be regarded as two
separate words; but IMO they are close enough to look like two cases of
the same word. It's rather like LSF with its _illo_ "he/him_ and _illa_
"she/her"; although in theory they are synchronically two separate
words, it looks horribly like a morpheme _ill-_ with two separate gender
inflexions.

_tou_ was suggested by Philip and IIRC rejected by him because it
doesn't help at all if the phrase does not begin with the definite
article. How, for example, does one express "my" or "a boy's"? _tou_
would not help at all. But the particle -io can be placed after these words.

But am worried that -io might appear to be an inflexion, even in the way
I suggested using it. Your observation seem to confirm my misgivings. Oh
well, back to the drawing board    ;)

--
Ray
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ray@carolandray.plus.com
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
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Nid rhy hen neb i ddysgu.
There's none too old to learn.
[WELSH PROVERB]

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