Re: Standard Average European (was: case system)

On Fri, 11 Apr 2008 23:08:40 +1000, Tristan McLeay wrote:
>
> > On 11/04/08 22:48:34, J�rg Rhiemeier wrote:
> > > As usual, Wikipedia is your friend:
> > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Average_European
> >
> > Now: I thought I had a pretty good understanding of linguistic
> > terminology and could understand most things you through at me, if
> > necessary having to think a little first. And maybe I'm just tired
> > right now, but most of the unillustrated items on the Wikipedia article
> > are just gibberish to me. Could someone please explain them and their
> > significance?
>
>(Jörg Rhiemeiier): Indeed, I don't understand all of them either,
Nor I.
Quote:
1.definite and indefinite articles (e.g. English the vs. a);
2.postnominal relative clauses with inflected, resumptive relative pronouns
(e.g. English who vs. whom);
**no problem with these two.
3.a possessive perfect formed with 'have' plus a passive participle (e.g.
English I have said);
** "possessive" ???? maybe meant "periphrastic"?
4.a preponderance of generalizing predicates to encode experiencers;
** Wha??
5.a passive construction formed with a passive participle plus an
intransitive copula-like verb (e.g. English I am known);
**OK
6.a prominence of anticausatives in inchoative-causative pairs;
**Wha??  Woudl this refer to the use of the reflexive pron. in e.g. 'la
puerta se abrió' the door opened?
7.dative external possessors;
**Wha?? or does it mean like French c'est a moi 'it's mine' ?? I'm not sure
Germanic or other Romance have anything like this.
8.verbal negation with a negative indefinite;
**What is a "negative indefinite"?
9.particle comparatives in comparisons of inequality;
**does this mean like "plus, más" ?  Engl. and I think Germ. have both
these (more/most, mehr) as well as -er/-est forms?? Romance langs. retain a
few synthetic comparatives (mejor, mieux) and Span/Ital retain the Latin
*-issimus superlative
10.equative constructions based on adverbial-relative clause structures;
**Wha??
11.subject person affixes as strict agreement markers;
**OK, but Engl. has only 3d pers. -s; distinguished in French mainly in the
spelling........
12.differentiation between intensifiers and reflexive pronouns.
**moi-meme, yo mismo vs. accusative me ?  Engl. uses PRO+self for both: I
hurt myself // I myself saw it.

Reply