--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:
> There's also
> a possibility based on normal IE word order if we can tell
> at all that a theoretical preform */wlkW&s ya hWa:kWs/
> meant "wolf('s) with his eye" where *ya actually did refer
> to "at his/hers/its/one's/someone's" and modified the possessum
> like in the Hungarian example.
A critical point here is that there is no relative pronoun in the
Hungarian construction. If you want to argue that *yo meant 'his',
then that is yet another possible etymology. Would you argue that *e
and *yo- were cognate? I presume you don't agree with the suggestion
that *yo- = *e (once *i) + thematic vowel.
> That would be consistent with
> a relative pronoun preposed to its clause. So your point about
> the possessum/possessor order would be unwarranted in this
> interpretation.
But then the accusative would be */wlkW&m ya hWa:kWs/, which you
strongly objected to when I floated this idea many posts ago.
Incidentally, can you name a language which has this sort of
construction i.e. marks case on the possessor? I thought I'd come
across an example, but I couldn't find one when I tried to look it
up. The nearest I've found is Chickasaw, but only with subject
possessor raising (SPR), and even then SPR doesn't enable me to even
half-justify the relative pronoun in an oblique case. I've a vague
suspicion the construction you're now coming round to may occur in
some North American language.
The best I can justify along these lines without an example language
is some seemingly fractured syntax, such as
'The wolf, whose eye is yellow', meaning 'The wolf's eye is yellow.'.
This only works as a possible form of subject possessor raising.
Richard.