> > > I agree. I give up on that one, as it seems you do too ;-)
> > > On the other hand, if the same device had been used here, the
> whole
> > > NP would end up looking as if it were a genitive.
> >
> > nom. **meines warme Wasser
> > gen. meines warmen Wasser
> >
> > I admit the difference is slight.
>
> The latter should be 'meines warmen Wassers'. The difference,
then,
> is not so slight.
In the masculine it's worse:
nom. **meiner alte Vater
makes it sound like a fem. genitive or dative.
For the benefit of those who have no idea what I'm talking about:
German adjectives in an definite NP in singular
xxxx m. f. n.
nom. -e -e -e
acc. -n -e -e
gen. -n -n -n
dat. -n -n -n
German adjectives in an indefinite NP in singular
xxxx m. f. n.
nom. -r -e -s
acc. -n -e -s
gen. -n -n -n
dat. -n -n -n
German adjectives in an NP with no initial numeral or demonstrative
etc (thus beginning with an adjective) in singular
xxxx m. f. n.
nom. -r -e -s
acc. -n -e -s
gen. -n -r -n
dat. -m -r -m
Miguel was referring to the two first ones. I was referring to the
last one. But the phenomenon of "taking on the pronominal ending"
(I've never understood why when I saw that in textbooks; why would a
noun or adjective want to do that?) is continuing from 1) to 2) and
from 2) to 3).
The two endings that "jumped the gun" and encroached upon the
adjective before they really had to are m. nom. -r and n. nom.acc. -
s (I should be writing them -er and -es-; I've left out the /e/'s in
the tables so that Yahoo would not make a mess out of the columns,
as it usually does with unequal-length entries). As for the neuter
-s, it is not used in a certain style in German (Revelation: 'Und
ich sah ein weiss Ross', not 'weisses', and Dutch has dropped it
completely 'een oud huis' vs. German 'ein altes Haus'. One gets the
impression it was introduced recently, exactly for the purpose of
delimiting the NP. Cf. Dutch 'een oude man' vs. German 'ein alter
Mann' where Dutch again may drop the -e under circumstances I've
forgotten.
Torsten