Re: Looking for a case: counting

Many things are derived from many things, but the fact
is that if you analyse syntactically a German phrase
containing the word 'vielmals' today, you most likely
have to define it as an adverb. That's syntax, not
semantics. And we shouldn't mix up diachronic and
synchronic analyse neither.

(As an exercise, we could try to analyse
syntactically, then semantically, the - very common -
expression 'Danke vielmals'. What is 'danke', and what
is 'vielmals' ?)

As to iterative marks applied to the verb, I already
mentioned some very interesting Russian verb forms in
a previous message, so this EXISTS, I didn't fancy it.
Even in French, 'tapoter' contains an iterative mark:
tap-ot-er is to hit (gently and) repeatingly, you
cannot say 'tapoter plusieurs fois' unless you accept
to do a pleonasm.

It is quite evident to me that there may be languages
where you can express iterativity in other ways than
the English way 'many times', or French 'de nombreuses
fois', or Spanish 'muchas veces'. I can't see any
problem in it.

--- Andreas Johansson <andjo@...> wrote:
> Quoting Philippe Caquant <herodote92@...>:
>
> > and if we have to disregard the
> > German form 'vielmals' because it doens't cope
> with
> > your theory,
>
> Did you read what Christophe wrote? _Vielmals_ is,
> quite transparently, derived
> from a nominal phrase in the genitive (as are plenty
> of temporals in German).
> It's quite parallel to English "many times", and
> can't reasonably be construed
> as evidence that you can specify iterativity in
> other ways than English does.
>
>
>          Andreas

=====
Philippe Caquant

"Le langage est source de malentendus."
(Antoine de Saint-Exupery)

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