Re: A few more Breathanach notes

[John Cowan <cowan@locke.ccil.org>]

Padraic Brown wrote:

> Well, that took the wind outa my sails.  Where is this "gerund" derived
> from if not the Latin?  It's just a matter of which (the true participle
> or the gerund) Breathanach is going to use as the participle.  I don't
> think both ought to be used in such an Englishy fashion, though.
> 
> If I'm not mistaken, both Spanish and Portuguese have taken the (Lat.)
> gerund and have reformed it into a "new" present participle; and have
> relegated the true participial form to mere nominal status.  A sort of
> role reversal where adj. becomes noun and vice versa.

Well, the B. gerund ends in "-nte" and the true participle in "-nn",
but which of these comes from what Latin form (participle is 3rd
declension in "-ns", "-ntis", gerund is 2nd declension in "-nd-")
is beyond me.  Looks like they got inextricably mixed and then
later sorted out.

> The other possibility is
> that Old British Vernacular used isse and issa for the pronouns, which
> were then ground down to the is and sa (your orthography may vary) of the
> modern tongues.

That's what I suspect, that Bri, Bre, K all derive their pronouns
from ipse > isse.  In which case no borrowing is involved, only
a common descent.

What happens in the Primary World, aka *here*,

	God bless us all, that's quite another thing.

> Only if its important to the discussion at hand.  Otherwise, the
> "dictionary form" ought to be used.  I think that's probably pretty
> standard amongst any linguistics group.

In other words not mutated.  It's my "Germanic feeling for the
initial consonant as an essential part of a word's identity"
(JRRT) that makes me screw up repeatedly, I fear.

-- 
John Cowan	http://www.ccil.org/~cowan		cowan@ccil.org
	You tollerday donsk?  N.  You tolkatiff scowegian?  Nn.
	You spigotty anglease?  Nnn.  You phonio saxo?  Nnnn.
		Clear all so!  'Tis a Jute.... (Finnegans Wake 16.5)