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From: deb5@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff)
Subject: Re: The whole language tree thing.
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References: <DEIxrB.8J0@crash.cts.com> <rte-1909951157560001@mac-118.lz.att.com> <DF7JAD.2nn@midway.uchicago.edu> <AC8903309668A7FFD@158.152.71.11>
Date: Sat, 23 Sep 1995 04:23:12 GMT
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In article <AC8903309668A7FFD@158.152.71.11>,
Paul Talacko <taka@yarn.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <DF7JAD.2nn@midway.uchicago.edu>,
>deb5@kimbark.uchicago.edu (Daniel von Brighoff) wrote:
>
>>Not much poorer in Romance borrowings than its English equivalent.
>>Is it still Germanic, Mr. Talacko?
>
>Er...depends on yor definition of Germanic...anyway what has it got to do
>with me?

I want to hear your definition of "Germanic" since it seems to differ
greatly from that espoused by most linguists. 
>
>BTW the fact that there are Romance words in other languages tradtionally
>labeled as Germanic only shows the validity of the revised model.
>
What revised model?  You've only presented a claim ("English is closer to
French than German") without any criteria or explicit methodology.  Even
the Nostracists have done that much.

In fact, I think the presence of Romance influence on German *undermines*
you new classification.  Your point was that French influence on English
had made it more "Romance" in character and less "Germanic".  However, 
Romance influence on German also makes it more "Romance" and less "Ger-
manic"--and, hence, more like English!

Take Mr. Messinger's sentence.  I forget the exact wording, but it was
something like:

"Natuerlich werde ich die interessante Idee erklaeren."

French:
"Naturellement, j'expliquerai l'id/ee int/eressante."

English:
"Naturally I'll explain the interesting idea."

English has borrowed the same words from French that German has, with
the exception of "explain" and "interesting."  For "explain" [< Latin],
German uses a verb created from a borrowed adjective [< Latin] with
the help of native morphemes (er- and -en).  Neither one uses the same
word as French.

By contrast, where German takes an adjective directly from French
[interessant], English creates one using native morphemes (0 and -ing)
in a way parallel to that in which the French adjective was formed.

Syntactically, English follows French in word order, but follows German
in having a two-part predicate.  English differs from both French and
German in lacking gender agreement in the article and adjective and
personal agreement in the verb.  Unlike their respective parent languages
(according to the archaic, inaccurate, and useless tree model), all three
require a personal pronoun with the verb.

So, is the English sentence more like the German or the French?  It all
depends on what importance one assigns various features.  What's more
striking is how much they all differ from their parent languages, a diver-
gence modelled (though not extremely well) by the tree model.

-- 
	 Daniel "Da" von Brighoff    /\          Dilettanten
	(deb5@midway.uchicago.edu)  /__\         erhebt Euch
				   /____\      gegen die Kunst!
