Re: The structure of nostratic

I truly hate to offer my opinion, but I will, nevertheless.

As far as I know, most languages allow a shift between SVO, OVS, VOS etc.
This is usually called "voice".
Thus, Bill hits the ball, The ball is hit by Bill, Hitting the ball by Bill
is..... and so forth.

One cannot equate sentence formation with a particular archaic language.

Gerry

----- Original Message -----
From: Knut <aquila_grande@...>
To: <nostratic@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2001 9:51 PM
Subject: [nostratic] Re: The structure of nostratic


> --- In nostratic@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:
> > Knut:
> >
> > Eeeny-meeney-mynie-moe... SOV, I guess... I don't think anyone
> > truely knows because it doesn't appear that Nostraticists have
> > bothered themselves too much with grammatical comparison. Lots
> > of nuts doing the typical, half ad-hoc vocabulary comparisons
> > though.
> >
> >Hi
>
> Thanks for your answar.
>
> I agree that steppe propably was of the sov-type. But then steppe has
> to be compared with semittic/hamittic, and those languages are mostly
> typicly VSO, they have some case endings, but use mostly prepositions.
>
> I don`t think it is easy for a typical SOV-language to develope so
> completely into a typical VSO-language. Therefore I think nostratic
> probably was SVO, had case endings and also used prepositions.
>
> In the Indo-european group there has been a development towards the
> VSO-type, but this has been extreemely slow, and nowhere completed.
>
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> >
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