Re: S mobile (Was : PS Emphatics)

From: fournet.arnaud
Message: 52320
Date: 2008-02-05

> =========
> Tsalam? t?ob
>
> How do you explain
> that the phoneme with no grammatical status
> can be there or not be there ?
>
> Which languages in the real world do that ?

The English prepositions _among(st)_, _amid(st)_ and _toward(s)_
immediately come to mind. Curiously isolated forms include
_thereabouts_ and _whereabouts_. The -s(t) comes from an old use of
the genitive.

There's a similar set of (a)round and, with curious gramatical
differences, (a)live and (a)like. However, you may argue that here we
simply see inconsistent phonetic loss.

Richard.
=================

The major problem is about all roots have or have not #s-
it's not just a couple of odd words.
it's widespread.

Arnaud
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