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Re: Standard Average European (was: case system)

From:ROGER MILLS <rfmilly@...>
Date:Friday, April 11, 2008, 21:16
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.

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Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>