Re: [tied] Re: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?

Jens:

>> 1. *wlkW&-s here must be analysed as BOTH a nominative
>> AND a genitive (a case merger)
>> 2. *ya is added for clarity, just as we similarly say "own"
>> as in "John's book" / "John's own book"
>
> 2. contradicts 1. If *yo (your horrible "*ya", presumably written
> this way to patch over the lethal flaw of the final vowel) is
> superfluous to the construction, the first noun must be a genitive.

No, either nominative or genitive will do. It doesn't matter in
the interpretation if we look at it parallel with "John's own
book". We could just as well say "John own book" as the Guyanese
do and it wouldn't matter one iota. So *-yo is functioning as "own"
or in Richard's examples, like a possessive suffix for "his". It's
merely for clarity because we can't depend on the dual meaning
attached to *s here.

The *a in *-sya is in fact needed because it is you who are assuming
an alternation that we don't see and therefore asserting the
imaginary. Until you find **-sye or **ye-syo, kindly stop confronting
me with irrelevant hyperboles.

> If speakers stuck to the genitive in its old form *-e-s, there
> would be no such problem with *-esyo;

But this "old form" can't be seriously reconstructed and this isn't
an option in my theory. Logically, the plural must have been always
*-es throughout this stage, so this idea makes no sense.

>> 4. If *ya were a nominative, there's nothing "genitive"
>> about the morpheme to convey the genitive. In English,
>> "own" DOES have a possessive meaning inheirantly.
>
> This is not about English.

No, but the phrase is parallel to this. The "possessive"
parallels seen in other languages, some of which were mentioned
already by Richard, show that this is a commoner pattern than you
are able to admit to yourself because that would bring you to
the unlivable conclusion that your view here is flawed.

> Well, that's exactly what the construction does in Iranian, and with
> the article also in Albanian and Greek. In these languages the
> connecting particles resume a genitive in the cases that are
> parallel to this. That works just fine.

All this would be interesting if only *-s was attached to *-syo.
It's not, so tata for you. I'm not in the business of inventing
imaginary suffixes with imaginary phonemes.

> I insist the form has *-o which is at variance with both analyses:
> An endingless locative should have *-e, and an inflected nominative
> should have *-os. Since both are a bit off, we are free to pick what
> we like - but we are NOT free to base great portions of the rest of
> the morphological analysis upon it, for whatever we choose will be
> very weak here (still, mine is supported by the high probability of
> *-so < *-so-s now, while yours has no basis).

The only reason why you say that my theory has no basis is because
it's not your theory... yet. We are not free to "pick what we like".
We pick what is logical and we base it on what we observe. We
observe that *-yo is endingless. We observe that endingless locatives
exist whereas endingless nominatives (I mean true ones, not those
caused by Nominative Loss) are restricted to the inanimate. Since
inanimate nominatives have no logical place in our analyses of
the thematic _animate_ genitive, the only other option is a
locative (since surely, a vocative can never do here).

The only way to get around an inanimate endingless nominative in
your analysis is to invent a lame reason why *-s can disappear.
It's frankly grating on my nerves but I can't force you to make
sense. You're a person free to think as you wish, vote as you
please, and not turn the gas off on your stove if you so
choose.

> You postulate a locative *yo which certainly does not exist, and
> does not even fit our expectations. That is worse.

You postulate a nominative *z AND postulate it onto *-syo without
basis. My one for your two. I'll take my "worse" over your "worser"
anyday.


= gLeN