Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language families

Discussion of natural languages, or language in general.
User avatar
linguoboy
Sanno
Sanno
Posts: 3681
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2002 9:00 am
Location: Rogers Park/Evanston

Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie

Post by linguoboy »

WeepingElf wrote:Polabian is AFAIK the only Slavic language with front rounded vowels.
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!

Porphyrogenitos
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:13 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

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.

User avatar
Soap
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 1228
Joined: Sun Feb 16, 2003 2:57 pm
Location: Scattered disc
Contact:

Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie

Post by Soap »

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.
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?
Sunàqʷa the Sea Lamprey says:
Image

Porphyrogenitos
Lebom
Lebom
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:13 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie

Post by Porphyrogenitos »

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?
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.

User avatar
Nortaneous
Sumerul
Sumerul
Posts: 4544
Joined: Mon Apr 13, 2009 1:52 am
Location: the Imperial Corridor

Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie

Post by Nortaneous »

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.

hwhatting
Smeric
Smeric
Posts: 2315
Joined: Fri Sep 13, 2002 2:49 am
Location: Bonn, Germany

Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie

Post by hwhatting »

Porphyrogenitos wrote:
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?
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.
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.
The only modern Romance languages at all to preserve a nominative-oblique case distinction.
Outside of the system of personal pronouns, obviously.

Ars Lande
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 382
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2010 7:34 am
Location: Paris

Re: Archaisms and curiosities in well-known language familie

Post by Ars Lande »

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.
That's cool.
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.

Post Reply