Re: Celtic and Afro-Asiatic?

Hi!

Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> writes:
>...
> > 3) Relative clause linker: invariant particle, not relative pronoun.
North Germanic: 'som'/'sem',
German dialect & Swiss German: 'wo'.

> > 4) Relative clause technique (oblique): copying, not gapping,
> >     i.e., "the bed, I slept in it," meaning "the bed that I slept in."
Swiss German:
    s   Mäitli wo  de  Henrik mit  ere  i's      Kino   gaat.
    the girl   REL the Henrik with her  into'the cinema goes
                                   ^^^
    'the girl Henrik goes to the cinema with'

> > 6) Polypersonal verb (subject and object both marked).
Well, many.  E.g. French? :-)

    Moi j'l'as vu hier.

> > 11) Predicative particle: in copular or nominal sentences,
> >       the predicate is marked with a particle homophonous
> >       to a "local" preposition: "He (is) in a farmer"="he is a farmer."
Well, vague: in Finnish, sentences like 'I work *as a doctor*' use
essive case, and the adessive and IIRC inessive cases are probably
locative particles ('at' or 'in') + essive case historically, so
there's a vague link.  Anyway, in copular sentences, this is not used,
but nominative.  (The direct translation of the above would mean 'he
*has* a farmer' in Finnish).

> > 13) DO periphrastic: DO + VN, e.g. "He does singing."
Don't hit me: German: 'Er tut singen.'
Japanese: '<noun> suru'.

> > 16) Word-initial change, expressing a variety of syntactic
> >        functions
German?  I don't know what 'variety' means.

**Henrik