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Re: Cases + Word Order?

From:jesse stephen bangs <jaspax@...>
Date:Monday, February 19, 2001, 21:06
Christophe Grandsire sikayal:

> En réponse à Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg.rhiemeier@...>: > > > I see no problem with this. If understand you correctly, you mean > > having a single case for both subject and direct object, plus several > > oblique cases, and tell subject and object apart by word order. > > Right? > > I think such languages actually exist. (If I am not mistaken, > > Rumanian > > is one of them.) > > > > Jörg. > > Well, of course I should have thought of Rumanian! It had striked me when I had > discovered that it had cases but didn't distinguish nominative from > accusative... Still, doesn't it sometimes use the preposition "pe" to mark the > object of a verb?
Yep. The marker 'pe' is mandatory when the object is a person, and it's optional elsewhere, especially when emphasis is needed or the word order is weird. Vreau o carte. I-want a book. Pe o carte vreau. [ACC] a book I-want. The second one isn't exactly normal spoken Romanian, but it's grammatical. Jesse S. Bangs jaspax@u.washington.edu "It is of the new things that men tire--of fashions and proposals and improvements and change. It is the old things that startle and intoxicate. It is the old things that are young." -G.K. Chesterton _The Napoleon of Notting Hill_ Conlanger code: CLI> l%p+++ cS:R:N:H a++ y n18d:6 X+++ A-- E-- L-- N2.5 Idmp k++ ia-- p+ m++ o+++ P d++ b++ Yivríndil