Re: Diringer's "imprecision" and copy(-daiin) was: intercultural artefact

[Jacques Guy <jguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

26/01/02 14:51:21, "John Grove" <John@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Couldn't this also apply to case endings?

Yes of course, eg  hoi theoi athanatoi (if I stuffed up,
it's because I never learnt Greek properly, and I remember
very little of what I learnt). There might be something
there, a key to my other old saw -- the automatic
segmentation of continuous texts.

 What if words ending in 'aiin' are
>actually 'y'+ genitive plural, and maybe 'ain' is 'y'+ genitive 
singular...
>Of course this doesn't answer the duplication issue, but if we're 
separating
>'ki' prefixes maybe we can treat daiin as a suffix that has been
>separated...
>
>If 'dy' is a main classification of plants say...then a sub-class of 'dy'
>would use the genitive case to say 'of the' dy-class. So, word+daiin+daiin
>could be
>word(s) of the dy-subclass of the dy-main-class...
>
>shy.kcheey.daiin.cthol.chor.chokor
>shy ('s OF THE).kcheey-dy.cthol.chor.chokor
>
>cho.sho.chaiin.shaiin.daiin.qodaiin
>cho.sho('s of the) chy-shy-dy(of the) qody.

Perhaps, and perhaps not. It's just another shot in the
dark. I am more puzzled by the distribution of v, iv, and
iiv, which never occur word-initially. Likewise, I don't
remember gallows occurring word-finally. I still have 
doubts that spaces are word separations, BTW. If they were
not, that would solve a great deal of those restricted
letter-distributions. I also find it unlikely that a 
case ending should happen to end in a letter/sound that
never begins a word. Unless this v, or iv, is a supra-
segmental feature such as, say nasalization. Possible,
yes, which would account for why v, or iv, or iiv is
always preceded by a, as there is a natural tendency
for languages to have a reduced inventory of nasal 
vowels then they have them at all (cf Polish).