Re: Morphological development of the genitive case in German

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Article #2288

#2288

From: Peter Christian
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 00:28

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In-Reply-To: <1993Jan12.075338.4978@memstvx1.memst.edu> connolly@memstvx1.memst.edu


> But the question is why the masculine i-stems adapted only partially
> to the o-stem paradigm.  Seems an awkward way to proceed, though I know
> perfectly well that morphological change in generally tends to be messy
> in exactly this way.

Yes, I agree. The way this sort of change *ought* to work is that
phonological change reduces some measure of distinctiveness and then
analogy finishes the job off. Perhaps the vowel differences between
the declensions in the plural were just too striking.

Peter

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Peter Christian                         
  Dept of European Languages              peter@gold.ac.uk
  Goldsmiths' College, London.            petex@cix.compulink.co.uk
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From: petex@cix.compulink.co.uk (Peter Christian)
Subject: Re: Morphological development of the genitive case in German
Reply-To: petex@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 00:28:00 +0000
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