Re: [tied] Evening/Night (was Re: The "Mother" Problem)

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> > IN quite a few IE languages (both living and dead) the genitive
>is used to
> > denote a time period during which actions occurs. English "I
>work days"
> > meaning "I work during the day".
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>I may be wrong, but isn't that use American English?

I also may be wrong, but it seems I have seen examples of it in Chaucer and
(to even further back, if we want to keep to English) in Beowulf. I can try
to find examples if I have time.

> > This example is of the plural not of the genitive (possessive).
> >

Historically, it is a genitive. I would imagine is would fall in with the
plural simply because you can't tell -s from -s, which marks both the gen.
and plural.

>It falls nicely into place with German "Ich arbeite nachts",
>Dutch "Ik werk 's nachts" (with a non-standard genitive!).
>I always felt it might be an immigrant calque.

You can also find examples in Latin and Hittite. Temporal genitives seem to
go back a long way...

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>Torsten
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