From: James K. Tauber (jtauber@tartarus.uwa.edu.au)
Date: Wed Aug 30 1995 - 21:53:35 EDT
On Wed, 30 Aug 1995 RoyRM@aol.com wrote:
> Where do the linguists stand on this? Is function more important in
> classification than form? Or, does form get preminence in a language that
> has such an easy breakdown?
Both are useful classifications in my opinion.
As a first approximation, the distinction between 8/5 cases is one of
function versus form, but personally I'm not sure that an 8-way
distinction is enough when talking about function. Today's descriptive
grammarians would probably come up with a lot more than 8 functions of
substantives in Greek. For example, one might distinguish agents in
intransitive clauses from predicative complements, even though they'd
both be called 'nominal' even in an 8 case system.
My understanding is that an 8 case system is really an attempt to provide a
diachronic (historical) explanation for the use of one case for multiple
functions. Viewing Greek as having 8 cases attempts to reverse the case
syncretism (or merging) that has occurred. What it fails to take into
account, though, is that even each of Pre-Greek's 8 morphological cases
had multiple functions.
James K. Tauber <jtauber@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
University Computing Services and Centre for Linguistics
University of Western Australia, Perth, AUSTRALIA
http://www.uwa.edu.au/student/jtauber
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