PIE syntax and word-order

[Thomas McFadden]

>     Of course, classical example of handbooks. You have (semantic) freedom
> with the substantive maison but not with homme.
>     What is in question here is that when there is the possibility of free
> word order, it does not induce _systematically_ a difference in meaning,
> style, emphasis etc.

sorry for the delay on replying to this.  i disagree that what is in
question here is solely the systematic correlation between differences in
word order and differences in meaning.  yes, i am saying that i would
expect differences in meaning, broadly construed, accompanying differences
in word order, but i've also been trying to say that whether this holds up
in every instance or not is actually independent of whether word order is
a part of the grammar of all languages.  in order for word order to be a
component of the grammar it is not necessary for it to be tied directly to
nuances of meaning.  it is only necessary for the various word order
possibilities in a given language to be determined by the grammar of that
language.  maybe there are two word order variants in French or some other
language that have absolutely identical meanings and usage restrictions,
but the point is that the fact that they are available at all (while other
imaginable orders are not) is a fact about French grammar.

>     But there again it is not PIE, where these possibilities were much more
> extended than in Modern french.

yes, of course, but that does not imply that the possibilities are not
regulated by the grammar.  it just makes it harder to show that they are.

>     And to reduce PIE syntax to word-order (Lehmann, Friedrich) is simply
> nonsense.

>     XD

i agree wholeheartedly.  i don't think anyone was trying to do that (at least i
hope).  to reduce English syntax to word order is nonsense as
well.  syntax involves the full scope of putting elements together to form
a grammatical sentence in a given language.  but its also nonsense to
reduce PIE syntax (or the syntax of any language) to something excluding
word order.  word order has to be part of it, just like case, agreement,
etc.  like i've said before, these other parts of syntax are much easier
to reconstruct than word order, so it may well be that confidently
reconstructing PIE word orders and their nuances will remain impossible,
but that's a very different thing than saying they didn't exist in the
grammar.