Pronouns (was Syllabicity)

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Nick and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Nik Taylor <fortytwo at ufl.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 1999 7:52 PM

> "Patrick C. Ryan" wrote:

>> A pronoun is a pro-noun. It can be put in any position syntactically in
>> which a noun can be employed. To say that pronouns do not "act like nouns"
>> is completely unjustified!

> Not entirely so.  One cannot say, for example, *the he.  To the best of
> my knowledge, of languages with articles, none of them use them with
> pronouns.  In addition, pronouns usually (always?) cannot have
> non-predicate adjectives, "old man" is acceptable, "old he" is not.

In my opinion, an IE form like *eme is analyzable as *e- + *me, where *e- is
Pokorny's *3. e-. In addition, Pokorny lists forms from a reconstructed
*eiso- such as Oscan  eizois, presumably *ei- + so + . . . Then, of course,
we have Latin iste, 'that of yours'.

I cannot think of a case where "old he" would be preferred over "old one
(masc.)"; that is perhaps why it is not attested.

<snip>

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
Little Rock, AR 72204-4441 USA WEBPAGES:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803 and PROTO-RELIGION:
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/2803/proto-religion/indexR.html "Veit
ek, at ek hekk, vindga meipi, nftr allar nmu, geiri undapr . . . a ~eim
meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)