Would it be even possible to lose cases? (General discussion) Language Learning Forum

Would it be even possible to lose cases?
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35 messages over 5 pages: 1 2 3 4 5

Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4866 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 33 of 35

10 November 2011 at 5:41am | IP Logged

Well, cases in IE languages were lost because of extensive use of prepositions, that
really simplified morphology. Agglutinative languages are more stable probably. So, IE
problem was that both endings and prepositions, i. e. prefixes and suffixes, were used
for the same purpose.
About the circle: Ancient Chinese was isolating and Modern Chinese is isolating. Why
hasn't it changed?
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
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Scotland
linguafrankly.blogsp
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Message 34 of 35

10 November 2011 at 8:48am | IP Logged

Марк wrote:

Well, cases in IE languages were lost because of extensive use of prepositions, that
really simplified morphology.

Is that really cause or effect?

I mean, did people stop using cases because they were using prepositions, or did they use prepositions because they'd stopped using cases?

Or are they maybe one thing -- "changing from cases to prepositions" -- that is linked and inseperable?
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Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4866 days ago
2096 posts - 2972 votes

Speaks: Russian*

Message 35 of 35

10 November 2011 at 2:23pm | IP Logged

Cainntear wrote:

Марк wrote:

Well, cases in IE languages were lost because of
extensive use of prepositions, that
really simplified morphology.

Is that really cause or effect?

I mean, did people stop using cases because they were using prepositions, or did they
use prepositions because they'd stopped using cases?

Or are they maybe one thing -- "changing from cases to prepositions" -- that is linked
and inseperable?

It is the cause, of course. The language has always been functional and comprehensible.
When cases started being lost, there must have been something which could replace them.
Otherwise the language would have become incomprehensible for some time. And it is
historically proved. First Romans started using a(d) + acc instead of dative, then
dative was lost.

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