No Proto-Celtic?

Gabor Sandi g_sandi at hotmail.com
Fri Jun 8 12:36:01 UTC 2001


Reply to: Thomas McFadden <tmcfadde at babel.ling.upenn.edu>

>> Actually, I don't think that I said anything about the position of full NP
>> subjects relative to verbs. Still, having a different order for personal
>> pronouns is not that unusual, is it? In the Romance languages the direct
>> object of the verb normally comes after the verb if it is an NP (Je vois le
>> chien), but before the verb if it is a personal pronoun (Je te vois).

>> Whether a similar switchover can happen with the subject is another
>> question. I don't think that there is a theoretical reason why it can't.

>if you were arguing that PIE was VSO, no matter whether the subject was
>full NP or pronoun, then fine, that's no problem if it can be
>supported.  there's nothing at all implausible about the idea that clitic
>pronouns in such a situation could have developed into agreement suffixes,
>of course.  appologies.  and no, there's nothing unusual in personal
>pronouns having a different order than full NPs, it is very common, but i
>think the specific case where full NP subjects precede the verb and
>pronoun subjects follow it would be very odd, simply because the examples
>of ordering differences that im familiar with are like the one you mention
>above, where full NP objects follow the verb and pronouns precede,
>presumably because, being lighter elements, they're more susceptible to
>cliticization.

I think that it is odd as well, yet I can't help noticing that personal
markings of verbs in IE (and Uralic and Altaic as well, for all you
Nostraticists) consistently come after the verb stem and not before it.
What's more, some of these endings contain consonants identical or similar
to what is found in the corresponding personal pronoun. -m- in the first
person is the most obvious (in PIE and Uralic, plus some other proto
languages), as is the -t- in the 2nd person plural (also, 2nd person sing.
in Uralic), -t- in the third person less so, the -s- in the 2nd person sing.
not at all. There are three competing hypotheses:

1. coincidence
2. agglutination of the pronoun
3. there is a relationship, but the ending is not the result of an
agglutination of the verbal root with a pronoun

If the answer is no.2 above, I would like to come up with a succession of
linguistic changes that look reasonable and result in the pattern we see.

>> Admittedly there are problems here, including the fact that older IE
>> languages definitely favour VSO word order,

>i may be betraying a lack of important knowledge here, but what makes you
>say this?  which older IE languages favor VSO?  i suppose this is why i
>misinterpreted your previous post, because i didn't understand the
>positing of VSO as the basic order.  (and i am honestly asking here, not
>just looking for trouble!)

Sorry about that. I meant SOV. And part of my job description in my
non-linguistic life is being a proofreader! Shame on me...

With my best wishes,

Gabor



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