Re: [tied] No person and number endings in IE Nordwestblock?

> So I thought: If the IE Nordwestblock language (which must been
> a 'primitive', ie. early language, cf its two genders

and 'dangling

> prepositions', like Hittite) had been a language in which the IE
> verbal stem and ending had not yet fused into one word, then a

middle

> (or rather impersonal) form would have looked like (with S-V

inversion)

>
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> Torsten, quite frankly, I am surprised that anyone on this list

_could_ write what you have written above:

>
> 1) no language - at any time in its history - is 'primitive'; if

it lacks inflections that contemporaneous languages had, it has
simply developed differently;

>

Yes, that's why I put quotes around it.

> 2) one gender, two genders, three genders, or multiple noun

classes, or no gender - all are equally unprimitive;

>

Whatever.

> 3) there are no dangling prepositions in Hittite; there are

prepositions qua adverbs there are differently syntactically
employed;

>

Six of one ...

> 4) fusion is not progress nor decline.
>

Yes, yes.

> The underlying, tacit assumption is that manifestations of IE

grammar and syntax as we know them are somehow "advanced", which is
utter rot, if you will forgive me.

>

I will see if I can find it in my heart to forgive you that you
overlooked the quotes.

> Which means we would explain the tendency towards non-inflection

in

> verbs in Northern Germanic (it was never there in the substrate)

and

> the form of the middle with one idea.
>
>
> I think I read a long time ago that in Celtic the 3rd sg middle

can be

> used in all persons and numbers. Is that so?
>
>
> ***
> Patrick:
>
> The explanation is far simpler.
>
> Far North Europeans did not originally speak IE; and when they

did learn to speak it, they learned imperfectly, and retained some
speech habits from whatever they spoke before.

>

Yes, that is what 'substrate' means. I which way do you believe this
differs from what I said (apart from the fact that I think that the
immediate substrate in Northern Europe was IE)?


Torsten