Re: [tied] *-je/o- [was: IE thematic presents...]

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, glen gordon <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

> Torsten:
> > That's right. I don't understand why an example
> > from an isolating language can be used to justify
> > the assumption of an endingless derivation in an
> > inflecting language.
>
> Because your mind is limited by inaccurate definitions
> like 'isolating' which is in the end only a relative,
> not an absolute, term. English still has many
> inflections and so it begs the question: How many
> inflections constitutes 'a non-isolating language'
> (as if we could possible count the number of
> inflections)?
>
> Let go of this conviction of yours.

I will let go of my conviction that Chinese is isolating at the
earliest possible opportunity.

>
> > Another thing you should think of: the genitive in
> > -yo belong to the thematic inflection and is
> > therefore late, not of Nostratic date.
>
> But I never said that this had anything to do with
> Nostratic! ??

But you said using the resulting genitive as a verbal stem without
further modifying suffixes was OK, since the ancestor of inflecting
PIE was isolating. That means the chronological sequence of the two
operations is out of order.

> At any rate, no language is perfectly free from the
> vice of incorporation, it seems. It's probably more
> a matter of relative frequency of usage.

Danish: 'Entomologen arts-bestemte insektet' "The entomologist
species-determined the insect'. That's incorporation, namely of an
NP into the verb. Slapping person-and-number endings onto an
adjectival (in casu the genitive) stem isn't.

>You're fighting a lost battle.

Yes, I'm trying to convince you you might be wrong.


Torsten