Re: [TIED] Beekes' Translation English.

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 2634
Date: 2000-06-12

 
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Odegard
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Monday, June 12, 2000 8:20 PM
Subject: [TIED] Beekes' Translation English.

--start quote--
The most important categorizations of inflectional types which can be made is that in ā-, o- and consonant stems (C-stems), the Greek and Latin 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declensions. [13.2.4, p.175]
--end quote--
 
Mark corrects Gabiner's translation of Beekes:
The most important category of inflectional types is that of the ā-, o- and consonant stems (C-stems) -- the Greek and Latin 1st, 2nd, and 3rd declensions.
 

 
The translation is really atrocious, for such a simple thought. If your quote is faithful (I haven't got a copy at hand), Gabiner's subject and verb disagree grammatically. I'd phrase it like this:
 
The most important inflectional classes are stems ending in ā, o, or in a consonant (corresponding, respectively, to the Greek and Latin 1st, 2nd and 3rd declensions).
 
One reason why I love English as a vehicle for ideas and arguments is that verbosity, padding and syntactic gymnastics look so much out of place in it.
 
Piotr