Re: Oddity of English

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "squilluncus" <grvs@...> wrote:
> >
> > Within the Germanic language family the voicing of thorn in

initial

> > position, which seems to be restricted to pronominal words, is odd.
> > I think of the, there, that, them, thou, thee, though, thus ...
> >
>
> > Is there an explanation for this?
>
> They appear after verbs (the nominative ones do in frequent subject-
> verb inversion), and therefore became almost enclitics which made
> their thorn appear in something similar to word-internal position.

Thanks!
From inverted subjects and affecting other cases too, hm.
The instrumental was obviously regarded as something outside the
paradigm when this happened ("ty", "...thi blaa sig söen bälter ...")
Never-thee-less still alive in Britain.

Lars