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Re: a case-free language?

From:Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>
Date:Sunday, October 3, 2004, 19:22
On Sun,  3 Oct 2004 21:00:59 +0200, Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
> Quoting Philip Newton <philip.newton@...>: > > > Why is it that Finnish is described as having cases, while the related > > Hungarian is described as not having any? Is it because Hungarian > > affixes are added to an invariable word stem (except for -val/-vel > > IIRC) while Finnish endings change the word stem? > > Well, Hungarian is usually said to have cases - very many of them. It's probably > the one with the largest number among tolerably well-known languages. Who told > you it doesn't have any?
Don't ask me where I heard this - but ISTR reading that it doesn't have (morphological) cases, presumably with a similar argument to Japanese not having cases - that the affixes are not case affixes but fused postpositions, or something like that. Cheers, -- Philip Newton <philip.newton@...> Watch the Reply-To!