Re: Greenberg's Word Order Universals

At 07:08 PM 9/14/2000 -0400, Nik wrote:
>Lars Henrik Mathiesen wrote:
>>   Some nouns have a marked singular, some have a marked plural, none
>>   have both. (Old French was almost like this at one stage, I think).
>
>In Old French, the nominative singular and the oblique plural of at
>least some nouns were marked, and nominative plural and oblique singular
>were unmarked.  For example:
>  S    P
>N fils fil
>O fil  fils
>
>If French had generalized the nominative, then it would've violated that
>universal, I think.
Maybe that's one reason why it didn't generalize the nominative.

- Tim

------------------------------------------------------------
Tim Smith

"To live outside the law you must be honest."
        -- Bob Dylan