Re: Combined Cases? and NP?

On Thursday, February 12, 2004, at 07:45 PM, Christophe Grandsire wrote:

> En réponse à Carsten Becker :
>
>
>> Hello!
>>
>> I just wanted to ask what "combined cases" (in Latin) are, how they work
>> and
>> have evolved.
>
> "Combined cases"? I've had 6 years of Latin at school and never heard of
> "combined cases".
..and I've had 64 years of Latin and not heard of "combined cases" as a
standard term.

All i can think is that some guy has referred to the Latin ablative case
as such because the PIE locative, instrumental and ablative had, more or
less, fused to give the one case in Latin.

The reduction of case forms was going on all the time, prompted by
weakening of pronunciation in final syllables and a greater reliance on
preposition. In 'Vulgar Latin' or Proto-Romance there were only two cases
among nouns (at least in the west): Nominative & Oblique. This is
preserved in Old French & Old Provençal (Old Catalan?). But the French
cases have since combined to give the modern 'one case' form. The other
western Romance languages do not even exhibit the two case systems in
their older forms.

Reduction or 'combining' of cases has been going on in the IE languages
for the past 3000 years. The 8 of PIE (or do modern theories postulate
more?) were reduced to the four that just about survive till today in
German; the four cases of Old English have given way to just the two forms
in English, one showing possession (from the old genitive) and the other
not (being the old Nominative, Accusative and Dative 'combined').

Ray
===============================================
http://home.freeuk.com/ray.brown
ray.brown@freeuk.com    (home)
raymond.brown@kingston-college.ac.uk   (work)
===============================================
"A mind which thinks at its own expense will always
interfere with language."         J.G. Hamann, 1760