why are clitics of such interest to Indo-Europeanists?

[LoneWolf]

I'm asking because I have a paper to write on the topic in my class. I have a few ideas of my own but I'd like to hear your suggestions. Also I have the impression I might be missing some important points. Oh and i'm not expecting anyone to actually write out an answer for me, I just want some suggestions. As you can see it's a very general question

Thanks in advance!

[Aurora Rossa]

Because no one likes hearing their work cliticized.

(I suppose that belongs in the Jokes Thread but oh well).

[roninbodhisattva]

Wait, the topic of your paper is literally the title of this post, or it has to do something with clitics in Indo-European?

[LoneWolf]

Wait, the topic of your paper is literally the title of this post, or it has to do something with clitics in Indo-European?

Ya it's the topic of my paper.

[Dewrad]

Wait, the topic of your paper is literally the title of this post, or it has to do something with clitics in Indo-European?

Ya it's the topic of my paper.

What kind of idiot would set that as a title? "Why are nouns so important to Uralicists?" "Why are pronouns so important to Slavicists"? It's stupidly broad.

[Declan]

Is is not equivalent to "why are tones so important to the Chinese", in other words, not broad, but simply unanswerable? Or am I missing something?

[LoneWolf]

Is is not equivalent to "why are tones so important to the Chinese", in other words, not broad, but simply unanswerable? Or am I missing something?

Actually I should have rephrased it this way: Why are cliticcs of such interest to Indo-Europeanists?

btw it is not I who actually chose the essai question... and moreover it's IE syntax class (should have mentioned this before probably)
anyways I gotta hand in the paper tonight so it's now or ever if I'm to take any useful suggestions.

[roninbodhisattva]

What's your thesis towards answering that question?

[LoneWolf]

there you go guys, I just changed the title of the thread.

[roninbodhisattva]

there you go guys, I just changed the title of the thread.

It's still the same question, but I'll repeat mine:

What's your thesis towards answering that question?

[Skomakar'n]

Please change your signature, LoneWolf... It's making me crazy. It's Völuspá.

I complained about some brand called Voluspa the other day. I think it's... spa stuff...

[Dewrad]

Is is not equivalent to "why are tones so important to the Chinese", in other words, not broad, but simply unanswerable? Or am I missing something?

Actually I should have rephrased it this way: Why are cliticcs of such interest to Indo-Europeanists?

btw it is not I who actually chose the essai question... and moreover it's IE syntax class (should have mentioned this before probably)
anyways I gotta hand in the paper tonight so it's now or ever if I'm to take any useful suggestions.

OK, taking the additional information into account, the set question makes far more sense. There are actually a number of reasons why the behaviour of clitics are of interest (and importance!) to the evolution of IE syntax. I'm assuming that your essay is not just to cover PIE? I'll write something up tomorrow evening, when I've finished work.

[Soap]

Too bad the essay is due tonight.

[Drydic]

Note: he put this topic up around 8-12 hours before it was supposedly due.

You could've procrastinated more.

Aside, I would love to see a treatment like that Dewrad.

[roninbodhisattva]

Aside, I would love to see a treatment like that Dewrad.

Me too!

[Dewrad]

Too bad the essay is due tonight.

Spite has always been one of the major motivating factors in my life.

DD: Remind me after Easter and I will. Work's a shit and I can barely think straight at the moment, but it is an interesting topic.

[LoneWolf]

Is is not equivalent to "why are tones so important to the Chinese", in other words, not broad, but simply unanswerable? Or am I missing something?

Actually I should have rephrased it this way: Why are cliticcs of such interest to Indo-Europeanists?

btw it is not I who actually chose the essai question... and moreover it's IE syntax class (should have mentioned this before probably)
anyways I gotta hand in the paper tonight so it's now or ever if I'm to take any useful suggestions.

OK, taking the additional information into account, the set question makes far more sense. There are actually a number of reasons why the behaviour of clitics are of interest (and importance!) to the evolution of IE syntax. I'm assuming that your essay is not just to cover PIE? I'll write something up tomorrow evening, when I've finished work.

Well I obviously had to submit my paper the other day, so it's a little to late to be taking any suggestions. I would still love to hear what you have to say on the topic Dewrad, tho' I'll Ieave that up to you to decide.

What's your thesis towards answering that question?

I'm not too happy with what I actually wrote in my paper. I basically blabed about the fact that in virtually all of the early IE langs clitics behave very similarly when it comes to their syntax (Wackernagel's law) and are the most revealing instanciation of any syntactic processes in PIE. I also briefly discussed the crosslinguistics parallelels of Wackernagel's law and their importance both for IE and general linguistics.

Overall, it was more of a short essai, I only wrote about one page and a half... and it probably should have been about 3 pages long, oh well...
Hopefully the teacher will be understanding!

[Skittles]

LoneWolf, you should totally post your paper! I for one would love to read it.

[roninbodhisattva]

I basically blabed about the fact that in virtually all of the early IE langs clitics behave very similarly when it comes to their syntax (Wackernagel's law) and are the most revealing instanciation of any syntactic processes in PIE. I also briefly discussed the crosslinguistics parallelels of Wackernagel's law and their importance both for IE and general linguistics.

Actually this is an interesting point, I've been thinking a lot about syntactic reconstruction and how one has to go about it and the methodological issues and whatnot. So this is an interesting angle to come at it from.