Re: Noun tense

On Tue, 2002-07-23 at 05:14, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

> In general, I would disagree with the proposition that these
> cliticized verb forms are evidence that English are likely
> someday to mark tense on nouns.  Evidence that they're still
> clitics comes from grammatical constructions like the following:
>
> "The Man raving wildly's been rather active lately."
Does 'The man raving wildly's dog's been rather active lately.' not
therefore cause problems with the possessive? Or, what *is* the
possessive?

Oh, and I never said it *would* happen in English, or even that it was
likely, so you can't be disagreeing with me. I just said it *could* and
so put it into my conlang.

Also, something like 'you're' /jo:/ bares little/no phonological
relationship to /j}:/+/{@,a:}/. I realise that doesn't mean much to
people who say /ju:r/ etc, but does it mean that -'re is still merely a
clitic?

Tristan.

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