Re: Germanic and Celtic (was Re: Verb-second ... verb-penultimate languages?)

Hallo!

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:10:19 +0100, R A Brown wrote:

> Is there any evidence that ancient Gaulish was VSO? Or is the
> characteristic VSO order an innovation (like, e.g. conjugated
> prepositions) of later insular Celtic?
It is definitely an Insular Celtic innovation.  If my memory serves me right,
Gaulish vacillated between SOV and SVO, and Celtiberian was plainly SOV.

> There is a stratum of non-IE vocabulary shared between the two, e.g.
> landa, comba etc. But this would surely suggest nothing more than
> borrowing from a common source, maybe some non-IE spoken around
> headwaters of the Danube, who knows?
Yep.  Borrowings from a common source.  Possibly the same language which
the "Old European hydronymy" comes from.  ObConlang: I am building such words
into Old Albic, which I fancy to be related to that unknown language.

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:18:31 +0200, Henrik Theiling wrote:

> But I think at least most generative grammarians would classify German
> as basically SOV (in most subordinate clauses), having the
> one-movement order VSO in questions (and in certain sub-ordinate
> clauses) and the two-movements order TVSO in propositional sentences.
> But I don't know to what extent the SOV in subordinate clauses is
> pan-Germanic/was Proto-Germanic.  Today, German, Dutch, Afrikaans, and
> closely related langs/dialects have it.  Others?
The oldest known Germanic inscription that contains a full sentence[1]
is that on one of the Gallehus horns:

EK HLEWAGASTIZ HOLTIJAZ HORNA TAWIDO

Translation: 'I, Hlewagastiz Holtijaz, made the horn.'

As clearly SOV as it can be.

[1] The Negau helmet inscription is older, but doesn't feature a full
sentence.

On Tue, 25 Apr 2006 18:09:48 +0100, Joe wrote:

> Elliott Lash wrote:
>
> >I dont believe this is the case. The earliest Celtic
> >languages, Gaulish, Celtiberian, Lepontic(?), all have
> >word orders, morphology, phonology and some lexicon
> >more similar to Italic languages than Germanic.
> >
> >
>
> Is it beyond reasonable doubt that they're closer related to the Insular
> Celtic languages than Germanic is, though?
What do you mean by "they"?  If you mean Continental Celtic, it is generally
accepted that they are the closest kin of Insular Celtic; I don't know why
Ray always puts "Celtic" in quotes.  If you mean Italic, there is no such
consensus, though some linguists feel that Celtic is closer to Italic than
to Germanic.

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