Re: Object Genitive

Andreas Johansson sikayal:

> In Tairezazh, gerund plus subject genitive is very common (eg _raigent tai_
> "my eating"), but gerund plus object genitive isn't allowed - instead the
> gerund takes an direct object. Because of this, I'd find it a bit
> inconsequent to express the "object" of an agental noun by a genitive. Is
> there any real-world precedent to express it by an accusative instead? For
> instance, "lover of stars" would then be translated as _tsheiel zauns_
> "lover stars[acc]" - does this seem naturalistic?
Sure.  In fact, the "object genitive" that seems so natural to use as an
adjunct to an agentive noun is rather a peculiarity of our branch of
IE--any number of other solutions are possible.  In Yivríndil, we use the
dative, for example, and Greek allows you to use the accusative or the
dative under certain conditions.

Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu

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