Re: Rromei-Geldyghei lyngvei (Roman-Celtic langs)

["Raymond A. Brown" <raybrown@MACLINE.CO.UK>]

At 21:12 21/4/98, Padraic Brown wrote:
>On Tue, 21 Apr 1998, Nik Taylor wrote:
>
>> Padraic Brown wrote:
>> > As Ray said, they are _conjugated_, just like verbs!  The gender
>> > distinction is already in the pronouns.
>> I was under the impression that they took the personal endings of the
>> verbs.
>
>Some of them certainly do look like it -- the 1st s. -m of the (Old Irish)
>conjugated prep. is also found on some 1st. singular verbs.  But they are
>treated as suffixed pronouns.  On the other hand, the verb endings of IE
>languages are probably descended from pronouns anyway; so it's six of one
>half dozen of the other.

Absolutely.  And in any case the original IE verb endings are not all
preserved in the Celtic langs.  Most noticeably the IE 2nd plural ending is
entirely lost & the ending found in both the Brittonic & Goidelic groups
are based on the *pronoun*.  Also, to make life even more interesting
you'll find that the 3rd person plural _pronoun_ in both groups was
refashioned under the influence of the verb end & that this is also the
ending found on the conjugated prepositions.

>You can tell that they're pronouns, however, because the prepositions have
>feminine forms that the verbs lack.

Sort of.  Certainly in the Brittonic langs &, I'm pretty certain in the
Goidelic langs, the endings for verbs & prepositions are identical except
for the 3rd singular.  [Those who support a Semitic influence will no doubt
see the development of separate masc. & fems. here as further evidence of
their cause  ;-)  ]

Furthermore, in Breton the conjugated prepositions have developed an
_impersonal_  ending formed in *exactly* them same way as it is with verbs
(e.g. warnor = 'on one').

Indeed, it is patently obvious that verbal subject endings, conjagated
prepositions and the personal pronouns have all mutually affected &
influenced each other.  IMHO to maintain that the verbs are conjugated but
that the prepositions are inflected in some other way goes contrary to the
evidence and is worthy of the petty quibbles argued over on auxlang.
Let's, for goodness sake, avoid that on this list.

Ray.

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Written in Net English        Humor not necessarily marked

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