Re: Case System Collapse (was: Transhumance)

> > And why is there no "case system collapse" in former Celtic
> territory
> > in Germany, if the initial conditions for the Germanic dialects

are

> > the same?
>
> German feminine nouns don't show case differences in the singular.

Which is why the distiction in German between nom. and acc. hinges on
masc. alone.

>
> Why is there a "case system collapse" in the Romance-speaking

former

> Celtic territories? The case system has also collapsed in Welsh.
> It's preserved in Irish.
>

What I claim is that they are caused by creolisation. Creolisation is
caused by ethnic upheaval: someone who doesn't grasp the intricacies
of the old languages takes power. In this case I believe a great part
of the so-called Germanic invasions were made up of recently
Germanified Nordwestblock peoples, whose old language
('Nordwestblockese') had no case system and a one- or two-
(common/neuter, as in old PIE) gender system, and therefore spoke the
Germanic koine similarly modified. Welsh (ie. Britannic) bore the
brunt of Anglo-Saxon invasion, unlike Irish. You'd probably know more
than me about the extent of desertion to them by the invaders.

Torsten