Re: [tied] No person and number endings in IE Nordwestblock?

From: tgpedersen
Message: 43039
Date: 2006-01-20

> So I thought: If the IE Nordwestblock language (which must been
> a 'primitive', ie. early language, cf its two genders
and 'dangling
> prepositions', like Hittite) had been a language in which the IE
> verbal stem and ending had not yet fused into one word, then a
middle
> (or rather impersonal) form would have looked like (with S-V
inversion)
>
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Torsten, quite frankly, I am surprised that anyone on this list
_could_ write what you have written above:
>
> 1) no language - at any time in its history - is 'primitive'; if
it lacks inflections that contemporaneous languages had, it has
simply developed differently;
>

Yes, that's why I put quotes around it.


> 2) one gender, two genders, three genders, or multiple noun
classes, or no gender - all are equally unprimitive;
>

Whatever.


> 3) there are no dangling prepositions in Hittite; there are
prepositions qua adverbs there are differently syntactically
employed;
>

Six of one ...


> 4) fusion is not progress nor decline.
>

Yes, yes.


> The underlying, tacit assumption is that manifestations of IE
grammar and syntax as we know them are somehow "advanced", which is
utter rot, if you will forgive me.
>

I will see if I can find it in my heart to forgive you that you
overlooked the quotes.



> Which means we would explain the tendency towards non-inflection
in
> verbs in Northern Germanic (it was never there in the substrate)
and
> the form of the middle with one idea.
>
>
> I think I read a long time ago that in Celtic the 3rd sg middle
can be
> used in all persons and numbers. Is that so?
>
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> The explanation is far simpler.
>
> Far North Europeans did not originally speak IE; and when they
did learn to speak it, they learned imperfectly, and retained some
speech habits from whatever they spoke before.
>

Yes, that is what 'substrate' means. I which way do you believe this
differs from what I said (apart from the fact that I think that the
immediate substrate in Northern Europe was IE)?


Torsten