On Sun, 25 May 2003 19:31:03 +0200, Miguel Carrasquer <
mcv@...>
wrote:
Oops, I hit "Send" before finishing the sentence...
>As Greenberg kindly pointed out, such a word-order usually means
>postpositions and modifiers preceding their heads. One conclusion
>reached from this is that the nominative endings of (late) PIE were
>likely not from an enclitic demonstrative pronoun, since
>demonstratives, being modifiers, would usually (if not always)
>precede their heads...
Not according to universal #966 at
http://ling.uni-konstanz.de:591/Universals/search.html
IF the definite article is distinct from demonstratives and object
follows verb, THEN the definite article precedes the noun. IF the
definite article is distinct from demonstratives and object precedes
verb, THEN the definite article follows the noun.
(DefArt !~ Dem) & VO => DefArt N; (DefArt !~ Dem) & OV => N DefArt
This is consistent with my personal impression that an SOV language
like Basque has a postixed article, while SVO and VSO languages like
English or Arabic have a prefixed article.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...