In Dutch I read: "De belangrijkste indeling
in flexietypen die men in de bekende talen kan maken, is die in à-, o- en
consonantstammen (C-stammen), de Griekse en Latijnse 1e, 2e en 3e
declinatie". IMO Gabiner's "categorizations" should be
singular, and his "which" should be "that", and he forgot
"in de bekende talen".
(Mark, I had to read several sentences in Dutch several times,
and still don't understand everything.)
++++++++++
Mark
wrote:
This is a kvetch about Beekes' book as he appears in
English guise. From R.S.P. Beekes'
book, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics: An Introduction (John
Benjamins, 1995): "The most
important categorizations of inflectional types which can be made is that in
a-, o- and consonant stems (C-stems), the Greek and Latin 1st,
2nd, and 3rd declensions." [13.2.4,
p.175]
I have had to read and re-read this sentence to make
sense of it. The fault is not mine but that of Paul Gabiner, the translator. I
was left looking for an object where the period occured until I decided the
translation itself is defective. You have to construe the prepositions in
rather rare senses, and then mentally repunctuate the whole thing, among other
things. Rewrite:
"The most important category of inflectional
types is that of the a-, o- and consonant stems (C-stems)
-- the Greek and Latin 1st, 2nd, and 3rd
declensions." As I get more deeply into the densely packed quantities of
information Beekes presents, particularly on ablaut and the IE noun/adjective --
and consequently, practically parse every sentence there -- Gabiner's English
gets in the way. Here endeth the kvetch. Mark.