case diagram

[Bruce Ingham]

On 18/4/05 3:53 pm, "R. Rankin" <rankin at ku.edu> wrote:

> That's really interesting.  I've been part of an
> off-list discussion of this sort of diagramatic
> representation of case and my retired colleague, Keith
> Percival, who originally brought the diagram to my
> attention, believes it may only date from the last
> couple of centuries.  The Arabic brings a whole new
> dimension to the question.  Any idea how long this
> usage has been in Arabic?        Bob

>
>> Arabic does it too marfu' 'raised' is nominative,
>> mansuub 'inclined' is
>> accusative and majruur 'pulled' is genitive, all
>> through of as 1-90 degrees.
>> However they may have it from the Greeks
>> Bruce
>
>
>
>
As far as I know the terminology is all quite early ie from the Abbasid
period in Basra and Kufa, which makes it 7th-8th centuries AD.  They also
had quite reasonable phonetic terminology, strangely enough they had not
discovered voice-voiceless, but almost got it with something called mahmuus
'whispered' and majhuur 'loud'.
Bruce