JK Rowling pens a Harry Potter prequel / War of Roses/Holmes?Figg/Walpurga

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Carol" <justcarol67 at ...> wrote:

Carol:
> Later, (after a reminder that English is a Germanic and not a Romance
> language and that modern English is an analytical as opposed to an
> "inflectional" language), Mason defines "case" as "the form in which a
> noun or pronoun is used, in order to show the relationship in which it
> stands to some other word in the sentence" and adds:

Geoff:
To be quite frank, I do not agree with Mason about English. One of the 
things which makes English one of the most expressive languages in 
the world is the fact it is a mongrel.

I agree that a large part of English derives from its Anglo-Saxon 
Germanic roots but the fact remains that French had a dominating 
effect on English linguistic development following the Norman 
Conquest and thus there is a large part of our heritage stemming
from the Romance side.

I taught for many years alongside a colleague whose speciality was 
English and who used to sum up the post-1066 development in the 
following humorous and succinct way:
"When the Normans conquered England, French became the official 
language of the Court. Anglo-Saxon was thrown to the peasants to 
do with as they would and what they did with it was nobody's business!"

This is also echoed in Bill Bryson's excellent book "Mother Tongue".
Just as an aside, Tolkien intensely hated the French influence on English.

Carol:  
> More to the point, the section on case in modern English is followed
> by a note beginning, "The endeavor to distinguish a *dative* and an
> *accusative* case in modern English is at variance with the genius
> [spirit] and history of the language.... 

> It is unphilosophical to re-introduce distinctions which a language 
> has ceased to recognise....

> As there is but one *form* to denote both the direct and the indirect 
> object, not only is nothing gained, but an important piece of linguistic 
> history is obscured by having two names for it. It is much better to 
> use the common name *objective* 

Geoff:
But there is a dative because any English speaker can recognise the 
usage without the use of a pronoun.


Carol, still maintaining that dative and accusative were already
> merged in Middle English and are no more applicable to "thee" than to
> to the modern "you" (and that "objective case" nicely encapsulates the
> primary functions of pronouns used as direct objects, indirect
> objects, and objects of prepositions, all serving an objective
> function with no difference in form)

Geoff:
The trouble, as I've already hinted, about the title "objective case" is 
that for those of us, like myself,  who have had contact with Latin 
and German is that I think in terms of these names. The  title "objective 
case" means nothing linguistically to me. My first reaction is that we 
are in the subjective/objective area - "What am I supposed to be 
thinking about objectively here?" OK, so I've missed the point  but I 
stay with the comfort zone of the terminology I was taught.

I have no reason to object to your view expressed in the last paragraph; 
it is your interpretation. But, if I may go back to quotations from 
Wikipedia a couple of days ago, when I pointed out that the statement 
was that "Most modern English grammarians..." The use of the phrase
 "objective case" is not prescriptive and it would appear that CJ and I 
are both of the opinion that dative and accusative can retain a place 
in the descriptive process.