PIE syntax and word-order

[Xavier Delamarre]

le 1/06/01 15:05, Stanley Friesen à sarima at friesen.net a écrit :

XD :
>> Even in modern French the difference of meaning between 'une tres grande
>> maison' and 'une maison tres grande' is minimal ; you can use both sentences
>> freely to express exactly the same thing (no difference in style or
>> emphasis).

SF :
> Actually, those look like fragments to me, not sentences.

> But, even so, I suspect they are only interchangeable in some contexts.  In
> others, one or the other is probably atypical or improper.  Are there not
> certain questions for which one or the other is a more appropriate response?

You suspect wrongly. Here is your sentence :

1/ Hier j'ai achete une maison tres grande a Vaucresson

2/ Hier j'ai achete une tres grande maison a Vaucresson

Absolutely no difference in meaning, style or emphasis. I am sorry.

But this is not PIE, only a late IE language with a fairly fixed word-order,
with some pockets of freedom in this matter.

I am convinced that a more intimate practice of old IE languages like Latin,
Greek, Sanskrit,or Lithuanian would convince you that word-order is not an
essential part of their grammar.

In the previous posting, I made the (nasty) supposition that the obsession
for word-order in some circles was due to the mother-tongue of their
scholars. In fact I suspect that the reason is of a more general type : the
overinterest for general linguistics with its theoretical fashions,
generativism among others. It is always easier to build a general theory on
something (e.g. word-order) than to be confronted with facts, i.e. existing
languages.

gloria inuidiam uicisti
inuidiam gloria uicisti
uicisti inuidiam gloria
gloria uicisti inuidiam

etc.

X. Delamarre
Vaucresson (France)
in a not so big house.

>
> --------------
> May the peace of Syntax be with you.