Re: [tied] Utility of Articles (was: Rise of the Feminine)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Likewise, Jens objected to my ideas on PreIE because if I'm
> correct, it would appear then that for whatever reason IE speakers
> were clinging on to "thematicism" as a vital feature of their
> language instead of letting it go because it would seem "easier"
> from a grammaticists perspective.

In point of fact I objected to an unsupported guess that speakers
introduced such a device for no apparent reason other than clinging
on to it. It is commonplace that languages carry inherited stuff
around with them for millenia on end (think of the three genders and
the ablaut grades which have long since lost any function they may
have had), but it is not a generally observed fact that they just
invent funny morphological distinctions without any functional
correlate.

Jens