Re: Possessive Suffixes

On Thu, 19 May 2005 19:06:18 +0100, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> wrote:

>On Wednesday, May 18, 2005, at 09:08 , Rob Haden wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 18 May 2005 19:27:24 +0100, Ray Brown <ray.brown@...>
>> wrote:
>>
>>>> That's what I was wondering about.  How do languages develop possessive
>>>> pronominal suffixes from independent pronouns?
>>>
>>> Presumably: independent pronoun --> clitic --> affix.
>>
>> Yes, but sometimes the picture isn't that clear.
>
>I would not expect it always to be - such is the nature of natlangs   :)
>
>Things like sound changes (which you mention) and phonetic attrition have
>a habit of upsetting things - and both clitics and affixes, by their very
>nature tend to be unstressed and subject to such attrition.
Yes, exactly.  Oftentimes clitics are subject to (much) more attrition than
independent words.

>Both sound changes and phonetic attrition invariably lead to the
>development of irregular forms and analogy then works to reduce the
>irregularities. It is also likely that 'analogical interference' with verb
>endings could take place. Also older pronouns, which were the source of
>the clitics/ affixes may have become obsolete and been replaced by newer
>ones - this is probably most likely with 3rd person forms where, for
>example, demonstratives can easily take on the role of personal pronoun.
That's certainly true.

>For specific languages, one simply has to have some idea of the history of
>the language to be able to discuss the details. I was just suggesting the
>broad outline.
Yes.

>
>> suffixes.  So, for example:
>>
>> Nom. jalka-mi 'my foot'
>> Acc. jalkam-mi ' '
>> Gen. jalkan-mi > jalkani 'of my foot'
>>
>Maybe - but I would expect /n/ + /m/ --> /mm/, and Finish does have
>geminated consonants. We need someone with better knowledge of Finnish,
>especially with knowledge of the history of the language. BJP?
I think you're right there.  That's most likely where 1pl -mme and 2pl -nne
come from.  Does anyone know what the possessive suffixes were in Old
Finnish, if they were any different?

>I've just taken a brief look at similar data from Turkish & Hausa - yes,
>it is not just a simple independent pronoun --> clitic --> affix, But I
>think that in both cases, the apparent anomalies cannot be explained with
>some knowledge of the past development of the languages in question. I don'
>t think much more can be generalized than what I have written in the two
>paragraphs above. The details will surely be specific to individual
>languages or groups of related languages.
I think you meant to say "the apparent anomalies cannot be explained
*without* some knowledge..." :P

>> That would be pronounced /hO pa.'ti4.mu/, right?
>
>Not quite. A modern Greek would pronounce it /o.pa.'tir.mu/ (/o/ is lower
>than [o]). In ancient Greek there was no word stress accent, it was a
>pitch accent and, as far as we can tell, in Athens in the 5th cent BCE it
>was something like /ho.pa.tE:_Hr.mu:/ or possible still /ho.pa.tE:_Hr.mo:/
>.
>
>The modern Greek BTW is |o pateras mou| (where |e| really does represent
>epsilon, _not_ eta) /o.pa.'te.ras.mu/ where /ras.mu/ is pronounced [razmu]
>and /o/ and /e/ are rather lower than [o] and [e].
Yes, I read up on that after reading your message and saw that Modern Greek
has _pateras_ where Ancient Greek had _pate:r_.

>[snip]
>> Makes sense.  As always, written language lags behind the spoken. :P
>> Perhaps, if Greek survives into the future, one day the possessive
>> suffixes
>> will be written as they are spoken.
>
>Conservatism, for fairly obvious reasons, plays a string role in Greek
>orthography  :)
Yes. :)

- Rob