Nominal Ablaut, Noun Theme Formants, and Demonstratives

[Koontz John E]

On Tue, 11 Sep 2001, Catherine Rudin/HU/AC/WSC wrote:
> >I'd think that even if extraction is a marked or additional sort of thing
> >processually, it might come to be the more common (less marked)
> >alternative over time.  However, I don't know which order is considered
> >historically primary in Romance!  I do have the impression that DEM > NOUN
> >is normal in most of the older IE languages.
>
>      I'm mystified here.  Just because something is extraction does not
> mean it should be unusual or marked or anything, does it???  ...

Marked in the sense of "additional," i.e., adding some feature to the
construction.

> For instance, questions in English ALWAYS involve extraction, except
> in highly marked echo question constructions.  I realize we're
> probably using the term differently (and certainly in the context of
> different theoretical assumptions, diachronic vs. synchronic
> orientation, etc. -- maybe I've completely misunderstood Bob's (and
> John's) point -- but I still don't see why extraction should be
> anything other than common and normal.

Relatively so.  Questions are surely less common than statements, and
their syntax serves to focus what is being questioned, focus being the
additonal feature.  Very likely I am using the word in a different way.

What I was thinking was that demonstratives must ordinarily have a
contrastive focus (this not that, that not this), and that extraction is
often used to signify focus.  I think there is a tendency for the sense of
focus marking strategies to bleach, resulting in their replacement by
newer, more emphatic strategies.