Re: Cases + Word Order?

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