R: Re: Degrees of volition in active languages (was Re:Chevraqis: asketch)

"H. S. Teoh" wrote:
> Has anybody actually come up with
> something similar to the pre-classical Greek pronoun becoming the Attic
> Greek article -- i.e., the form of the word stays the same but develops a
> new function?
Several of the Gender-prefixes in Watakassí have remained unchanged from
Common Kassí, for instance, na- (Gender 2 [Male-sentient], singular),
derived from the CK word na (the, gender 2; altho "the" might be a
misleading gloss, it introduced noun phrases).  In turn, the CK articles
were derived from Proto-Kassi-Plia nouns which had been used as
counters, in this case, the ancestral form meant "man".  PKP had a lot
more counters than just the 7 that have survived into Modern Watakassí
genders, but I can't find my notes on the ancestral forms right now.

> And even who,
> whom, and whose are starting to collapse into just "who" in colloquial
> English.
Have been for centuries.  Shakespeare, for instance, has sentences like
"Who servest thou under?", where it "should" be "Whom servest thou
under?" (prescriptivists would have it "Under whom servest thou?")

--
"Their bodies did not age, but they became afeared of everything and
anything.  For partaking in any activity at all could threaten their
precious and ageless bodies! ... Their victory over death was a hollow
one."
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