Evan Kirshenbaum    925147 Tue, 01 Jun 04 12:01 AM "} }> But I do not deny that simplicity is a virtue; I deny that }> marking a noun with ... } possessive form of "England". A whole lot like. Did they beat that one out of you in linguist school?" I don't follow. Are you implying that "of England" is a possessive *form* of the word "England" in the same way that, say, "my" is a possessive form of "I" or "queens" is a plural form of "queen"? No beating was required to get us to consider "of England" a prepositional phrase rather than a form of a noun. Evan Kirshenbaum + HP Laboratories >You gotta know when to code, 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 > Know when to log out,Palo Alto, CA 94304 >Know when to single step, Evan Kirshenbaum Universities, Prepositions, Nouns, Plurals, Possessives, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Students, Schools

	Areff    925170 Tue, 01 Jun 04 12:54 AM "A whole lot like. Did they beat that one out of you in linguist school?" "I don't follow. Are you implying that "of England" is a possessive *form* of the word "England" in the same ... beating was required to get us to consider "of England" a prepositional phrase rather than a form of a noun." Kirsh, isn't, at some point, the distinction between the two an arbitrary one? Why not consider "of England", the spoken phrase (let's ignore the written language), a single word, /@ 'vIN gl@nd/ or whatever, the possessive form of the word /IN gl@nd/? Perhaps that's what Arjay is getting at. It's like that chicken and egg thing that you were recently discussing. You have all these generationally intermediate birds between "definitely not a chicken" and "definitely a chicken". A language can evolve in such a way that what was once a prepositional phrase can become a sort of inflected form of a noun. Who are we to say that we aren't somewhere between the non-chicken and the chicken? Areff Universities, Prepositions, Nouns, Possessives, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Students, Schools, Languages

	Evan Kirshenbaum    925283 Tue, 01 Jun 04 02:20 AM "I don't follow. Are you implying that "of England" is ... a prepositional phrase rather than a form of a noun." "Kirsh, isn't, at some point, the distinction between the two an arbitrary one? Why not consider "of England", the spoken phrase (let's ignore the written language), a single word, /@ 'vIN gl@nd/ or whatever, the possessive form of the word /IN gl@nd/?" The problem is that you then have to decide what to make of "of Merry Old England". If you can stick arbitrary words in between the parts, what's going on looks like syntax, not morphology. The alternative would seem to be to say that it's an affix if it happens to come immediately before the word it governs and it's a preposition if there happen to be any words in between, which is a pretty arbitrary distinction. "Perhaps that's what Arjay is getting at. It's like that chicken and egg thing that you were recently discussing. You ... such a way that what was once a prepositional phrase can become a sort of inflected form of a noun." True. The "a-" affix for verbs appears to have formed this way. And an affix can turn into a preposition or postposition, which is what appears to have happened with "'s". Evan Kirshenbaum + HP Laboratories >Whatever it is that the government 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 >does, sensible Americans would preferPalo Alto, CA 94304 >that the government do it to somebody http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ Evan Kirshenbaum Prepositions, Nouns, Possessives, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, United States, American, Languages, Morphology, Affix

	Carmen L. Abruzzi    926214 Tue, 01 Jun 04 09:49 PM "I don't follow. Are you implying that "of England" is ... a prepositional phrase rather than a form of a noun." "Kirsh, isn't, at some point, the distinction between the two an arbitrary one? Why not consider "of England", the spoken ... inflected form of a noun. Who are we to say that we aren't somewhere between the non-chicken and the chicken?" But then why would we limit this analysis to "of" forms? If "of England" is the possessive form of "England", then surely "in England" is the locative form of "England"; "with England" is the comitative form; "by England" is both the instrumental and the allative forms, but not both at the same time ("nearby England" is another allative form, so perhaps we need to number them); "over England" is the superlative form, "from England" is the ablative form; "under England" is the sublative form, "around England" is the circumlative form, "through England" is the perlative form; and on and on and on... Carmen L. Abruzzi Prepositions, Nouns, Possessives, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Writing, Numbers

	Evan Kirshenbaum    926332 Tue, 01 Jun 04 10:36 PM "But then why would we limit this analysis to "of" forms? If "of England" is the possessive form of "England", ... sublative form, "around England" is the circumlative form, "through England" is the perlative form; and on and on and on..." How I envy the Finns, with their paltry fifteen cases. Evan Kirshenbaum + HP Laboratories >When you're ready to break a rule, 1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 >you know that you're ready; youPalo Alto, CA 94304 >don't need anyone else to tell http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ Evan Kirshenbaum Possessives, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain

	Peter Moylan    938589 Wed, 16 Jun 04 04:40 AM Gene Wirchenko redled: "A queen who is English but is queen of another country would also be an English queen." In the most recent example of this kind, an Australian woman had to give up her Australian citizenship in order to join a royal family elsewhere. As far as I know, that's the norm. Or do they still refer to Phil the Greek up your way? Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software) Peter Moylan Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Languages

	Peter Moylan    938591 Wed, 16 Jun 04 04:44 AM Gene Wirchenko redled: "Right. Or, more precisely, "the Queen's knickers of England"." "And if she bought some from, say, Italy, then we have the Queen's Italian knickers of England" Give the poor woman some privacy. Whether or not she has a clitic in her knickers is none of our business. Peter Moylan peter at ee dot newcastle dot edu dot au http://eepjm.newcastle.edu.au (OS/2 and eCS information and software) Peter Moylan Business, Countries, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Careers, Languages