Re: [tied] Definite adjectives

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003 17:16:47 +0100 (MET), Harald Hammarstrom
<haha2581@...> wrote:

>Dear all,
>I was under the impression that "definite adjectives" i.e adjectives
>with a postposed (and later fused) personal pronoun, like in OCS, was a
>Balto-Slavic innovation. In fact one of the main arguments for a genetic
>Balto-Slavic subgroup.
>
>But then I read in _The History of the Lithuanian Language_ that
>1) This cannot date back to Proto-Balto(-Slavic) because of the
>(existence of) psotposed locatives in -en in lithuanian that are attached
>to the basic adj. stem as well as the following pronominal element. But I
>don't follow this argument - couldn't that have happened after the breakup
>of Proto-Balto-Slavic but still before the fusing of the adj. ending
>and the pron. element in Lithuanian (or all of Baltic)?

I don't follow the argument either. The agglutination of *-en is certainly
post-Balto-Slavic. I can't see the relevance to whether PBS already had
definite adjectives or not.

The indefinite adjectives in Lithuanian have a pronominal form in the
dative/locative (masc. o-stem -am(-e) instead of nominal -ui/-0(-e)). In
the definite, Loc. *-am-jam-e gives -ajame (loc.pl. -uos-juos-e >
-uosiuose), proving that the univerbation of the definite forms precedes
the agglutation of -e(n).

>2) "definite adjectives" appear in Avestan as well but were not
>continued there

Doesn't sound familiar.


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...