The moment I read this, I was like, "I'm willing to bet there's at least one Slovenian dialect which has them". Et voilà!WeepingElf wrote:Polabian is AFAIK the only Slavic language with front rounded vowels.
Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language families
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- Lebom
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Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie
Okay, this just in:
There are certain varieties of Franco-Provençal that preserve a nominative-oblique case distinction in the singular, marked on the article, rather like in German. This means these varieties are:
The only modern Western Romance languages to preserve a case distinction.
The only modern Romance languages to preserve a case distinction other than Romanian.
The only modern Romance languages at all to preserve a nominative-oblique case distinction.
However, I'm not sure of the diachronic origin of this distinction - the paper's in French and I don't know French so I couldn't get a super-good grasp of it.
Also: Sursilvan Romansch has innovated a distinction betweenattributive and predicative forms of the adjective bien/buns, also rather like German and Yiddish. This distinction evolved from the remnants of the old nominative-oblique distinction in Western Romance.
There are certain varieties of Franco-Provençal that preserve a nominative-oblique case distinction in the singular, marked on the article, rather like in German. This means these varieties are:
The only modern Western Romance languages to preserve a case distinction.
The only modern Romance languages to preserve a case distinction other than Romanian.
The only modern Romance languages at all to preserve a nominative-oblique case distinction.
However, I'm not sure of the diachronic origin of this distinction - the paper's in French and I don't know French so I couldn't get a super-good grasp of it.
Also: Sursilvan Romansch has innovated a distinction betweenattributive and predicative forms of the adjective bien/buns, also rather like German and Yiddish. This distinction evolved from the remnants of the old nominative-oblique distinction in Western Romance.
Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie
The first four things are interesting, but how is that attributive/predicative thing any different than Spanish? Spanish has adjectives that drop the -o when they are used before the noun they describe, and bueno is one of them. Does Sursilvan do it in both genders or just masculine?Porphyrogenitos wrote:
Also: Sursilvan Romansch has innovated a distinction betweenattributive and predicative forms of the adjective bien/buns, also rather like German and Yiddish. This distinction evolved from the remnants of the old nominative-oblique distinction in Western Romance.
Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:
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- Lebom
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Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie
Hm, that's true. I guess I forgot about Spanish doing that. And I'm not familiar enough with it to be sure, I just saw someone link to that page in that book. I guess the phenomenon isn't that interesting in and of itself, more just that it's a remnant of the case system. Which I don't think is the case in Spanish, unless I'm mistaken.Soap wrote: The first four things are interesting, but how is that attributive/predicative thing any different than Spanish? Spanish has adjectives that drop the -o when they are used before the noun they describe, and bueno is one of them. Does Sursilvan do it in both genders or just masculine?
- Nortaneous
- Sumerul
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Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie
Pannonian Rusyn also has front rounded vowels: nüč 'night', mnjüd 'honey', kljüč 'key'.
Siöö jandeng raiglin zåbei tandiüłåd;
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
nää džunnfin kukuch vklaivei sivei tåd.
Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei. Chei.
Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie
Spanish and Italian do that for a limited number of adjectives (Italian: e.g. san / santo, buon / buono) and for un / uno; this system goes back to a redistribution of apocoped allegro and non-apocoped full forms. My understanding of the Sursilvan system is that it's applicable to all adjective, i.e. not just a closed class as in Spanish or Italian.Porphyrogenitos wrote:Hm, that's true. I guess I forgot about Spanish doing that. And I'm not familiar enough with it to be sure, I just saw someone link to that page in that book. I guess the phenomenon isn't that interesting in and of itself, more just that it's a remnant of the case system. Which I don't think is the case in Spanish, unless I'm mistaken.Soap wrote: The first four things are interesting, but how is that attributive/predicative thing any different than Spanish? Spanish has adjectives that drop the -o when they are used before the noun they describe, and bueno is one of them. Does Sursilvan do it in both genders or just masculine?
Outside of the system of personal pronouns, obviously.The only modern Romance languages at all to preserve a nominative-oblique case distinction.
Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie
That's cool.Porphyrogenitos wrote:Okay, this just in:
There are certain varieties of Franco-Provençal that preserve a nominative-oblique case distinction in the singular, marked on the article, rather like in German. This means these varieties are:
The only modern Western Romance languages to preserve a case distinction.
The only modern Romance languages to preserve a case distinction other than Romanian.
The only modern Romance languages at all to preserve a nominative-oblique case distinction.
However, I'm not sure of the diachronic origin of this distinction - the paper's in French and I don't know French so I couldn't get a super-good grasp of it.
As for the diachronic origin, apparently much like in Old French / Old Occitan the dialect kept a nominative/oblique distinction for masculine articles; except it generalized the masculine article to all nouns, so the distinction was kept for feminine nouns as well.