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From: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Subject: No English Nominative??!! (was Re: Let's Name the USA People!)
Message-ID: <E6v1Ir.L6z@scn.org>
Sender: news@scn.org
Reply-To: lilandbr@scn.org (Leland Bryant Ross)
Organization: Seattle Community Network
References: <E6p5K0.BK@midway.uchicago.edu> <E6MwGp.J06@midway.uchicago.edu> <331D5D8E.C89@eventus.com> <E6nIGo.4w3@scn.org>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 03:54:26 GMT
Lines: 40


In a previous article, deb5@midway.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) says:

>In article <E6nIGo.4w3@scn.org>, Leland Bryant Ross <lilandbr@scn.org> wrote:
>>
>>I have no problem with ["USAmericans"] in oblique or accusative cases, but 
>>the nominative is clearly WEAmericans, 
>
>Is it?  Well, good thing that English doesn't have a nominative case!

Okay, now, Daniel "Da", this is a serious linguistics-type question, now, 
unlike the thread that just spawned it:

     When I was a kid learning English grammar (or what passed for such
     in the American public schools of the 'sixties), I was taught that
     English had three cases, which were called "subjective", "objective",
     and "possessive".  Later on, when I studied languages that had more
     exciting case systems, like Latin and Russian and German and Greek,
     I discovered that *they* all called their "subjective" (or "subject")
     case the "nominative", their "possessive" case the "genitive", and
     their "object[ive]" case the "accusative".  So, seeing no reason why
     English should be the odd tongue out, I got into the habit of calling
     English cases by the English terms for the (more or less) correspond-
     ing cases in those other languages.  Now you tell me 'taint so.  So
     here's the *serious linguistics-type question*:  "How come?"  Or, "Why
     not call the English cases "nominative, accusative and genitive"?  I
     frankly don't see any reason not to.

>I suppose if I thought it were pronounced like the clause "us Americans",
>I might share your concern.  When I subvocalise it, it comes out as
>['juw'Es@'mejrIknz], which seems free enough of irredentism to me.

You're right, I was pronouncing it like "us Americans" (*except* that I 
was stressing the first syllable, where [for me] "us Americans" normally 
has primary stress on the third syllable...)
--
Liland Brajant ROS' / Leland B. ROSS - Delegito de UEA  en Seatlo, Usono
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