Re: a case-free language?

From:    Benct Philip Jonsson <bpj@...>
> Thomas R. Wier wrote:
> > As I was trying to show in my discussion about Georgian, something
> > *can* indeed phonologically merge with a word, but it must not
> > *morphologically* merge with it.
>
> Interesting.  That might be what happened with the case endings
> in my conlang Sohlob.  They modify NPs rather than words, and go
> back to old postpositions, but at the same time they trigger
> umlaut in the words they are attached to, and undergo vowel height
> harmony themselves, as well as losing their own vowel.
Yes, this is actually the kind of thing you could expect if something
cliticizes to a host. So, perhaps it's best to say that they are still
postpositions -- just with different properties than the older ones.

 =========================================================================
Thomas Wier	       "I find it useful to meet my subjects personally,
Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
University of Chicago   half the time." -- octogenarian Sheikh Zayed of
1010 E. 59th Street     Abu Dhabi, to a French reporter.
Chicago, IL 60637