Lingua Latina Praepositiōne

[Issacus Divus]

Kore wa nan desu ka?

I was loooking for a long post as such.

To learners of the language, it seems natural that no native speaker would misinterpret diebus as 'by means of days', and yet we see in diebus or per dies or what have you, so that this misinterpretation is made impossible.

I see...naturally, as I expected in the beginning, the initial ambiguity was eventually solved with prepositions.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

So the ablative absolute is a sub-form of the ablativus loci? That makes some sense, I suppose.

You could say that. Certain words in the IE lexicon denote time & connote space (or vice versa), like dawn, which in our understanding is, strictly speaking, a 'time of day'. And yet to an Indo-European it is also a deity governing/encompassing/substantiating that time of day, under whose vigilance/in whose space you exist. Even so has it remained in Latin, albeit to a lesser extent.

 

[Bitmap]

The grand shift from fusional toward analytic grammar is evident in English, which as we all know is a desolate morphological wasteland, but that is another matter.

That's something I found a bit weird ... you can't predict anything with certainty, of course, but modern languages seem to have a tendency to become more analytic (though not all in the same way or to the same extent).
However, there also seems to be ample reason to believe that all bound morphems in languages must have developed from free morphemes (simply put, they all followed the -ment example for adverbs in French). If that is true, all case endings, conjugational endings and generally all inflections in Latin would have had to be free morphemes at some point, which in turn would mean that the language must have started of as an analytic or isolating language at some point, then shifted to a synthetic one and from there went back down the analytic route.

 

[Bitmap]

You could say that. Certain words in the IE lexicon denote time & connote space (or vice versa), like dawn, which in our understanding is, strictly speaking, a 'time of day'. And yet to an Indo-European it is also a deity governing/encompassing/substantiating that time of day, under whose vigilance/in whose space you exist. Even so has it remained in Latin, albeit to a lesser extent.

Well, you would consider the ablative of time a subcategory of the ablative of place, anyway, so it all makes sense to me. I simply never seriously thought about the question as to what kind of ablative an ablative absolute is.

 

[Pacifica]

That's something I found a bit weird ... you can't predict anything with certainty, of course, but modern languages seem to have a tendency to become more analytic (though not all in the same way or to the same extent).
However, there also seems to be ample reason to believe that all bound morphems in languages must have developed from free morphemes (simply put, they all followed the -ment example for adverbs in French). If that is true, all case endings, conjugational endings and generally all inflections in Latin would have had to be free morphemes at some point, which in turn would mean that the language must have started of as an analytic or isolating language at some point, then shifted to a synthetic one and from there went back down the analytic route.

THREAD: you-know-youre-a-latin-junkie-when

 

[Glabrigausapes]

However, there also seems to be ample reason to believe that all bound morphems in languages must have developed from free morphemes (simply put, they all followed the -ment example for adverbs in French). If that is true, all case endings, conjugational endings and generally all inflections in Latin would have had to be free morphemes at some point, which in turn would mean that the language must have started of as an analytic or isolating language at some point, then shifted to a synthetic one and from there went back down the analytic route.

An excellent point & well put. I expected no less from a chess wiz.

I mean what, at the core it, is the difference between the IE wḷḳoi 'in/on wolf' and, say, the Japanese ōkami-ni, or the Turkish kurtda? It's all pretty much the same shtick, however we love to categorize.

 

[Issacus Divus]

Both of those points are good.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

I remember reading that Frogpost when I was digging through his history. Seems like he had similar interests to mine.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

Shame he du'nt come 'round na moe.

 

[Bitmap]

I was about to say that every (ancient) philologist is probably bound to develope an interest in linguistics, language development and etymology ... but then I realised that the opposite is probably true. It's hard to find a Latinist who has an interest in languages (or even the language Latin itself).

 

[Bitmap]

Shame he du'nt come 'round na moe.

Yeah ... it's kind of weird ... I still remember him from 10-11 years ago and I learnt a lot from him.

 

[Pacifica]

but then I realised that the opposite is probably true. It's hard to find a Latinist who has an interest in languages (or even the language Latin itself).

That's not the impression I get from this forum.

 

[Bitmap]

That's not the impression I get from this forum.

Well, try studying it at university.

 

[Abbatiſſæ Scriptor]

Abſolute conſtructions uſe the inſtrumental caſe in Anglo Saxon, which makes ſome ſense in that they work ſomewhat like adverbial clauſes.

 

[Glabrigausapes]

Abſolute conſtructions uſe the inſtrumental caſe in Anglo Saxon

The Instrumental Café is my favorite place to get a cappuccino.

joke based on my misreading & nothing more!