Christophe Grandsire wrote:
>> 3) THe book emphasizes that some of the (non-verbal) grammatical affixes
>> apply to *noun phrases* rather than nouns. This seems strange to me...
>> every other language with a case system (or other noun marking) I've
>> ever learned always always marks these things at least on the noun, and
>> possibly also on the adjectives. But in some of the basque examples, you
>> have these affixes glued onto the final word of a noun phrase even when
>> that word isn't the noun itself!
>
>
> A great feature that I used in Moten, where the affixes are *infixes*, which
> means you really cannot argue that they are clitics ;) .
I use NP-modifying case affixes in Sohlob to. They are suffixes tho,
since Sohlob has neither infixes or prefixes. The indefinite marker
_-hah_ (which is identical to the numeral 'one' _hah_) goes between
the NP and the case markers. Alas the normal adj-noun order obscures
this nicety except in cases where the noun is focussed.
Chris Bates wrote:
> I can pronounce z and x no problem of course, but when I try for s, it
> pushes too much towards x. I'll keep trying though... at the worst I'll
> speak basque with a slight speech impediment.
>
>
The late Larry Trask wrote that some Basques lack the z/s distinction.
I suppose most furriners do to.
Andreas wrote:
>>It's really a mistery to, how such different sounds as
>>> 'i' and 'o' can be used alternatively in similar words
>>> between Russian and Ukrainian.
>
>
> Well, it's not too hard to imagine a sound change o>u>y>i or o>@>I>i.
>
Actually it is a lot funkier: o > o: > uo > ue > ui > i before a
disappearing *I\ or *U\!
/BP 8^)
--
B.Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)