Re: [tied] IE *-su and the Nostratic "equational" marker *-n :)

----- Original Message -----

From: Miguel Carrasquer Vidal

To: cybalist@egroups.com

Sent: Saturday, November 18, 2000 12:07 AM

Subject: Re: [tied] IE *-su and the Nostratic "equational" marker *-n :)

 

> [Miguel:] No, -oi- is here a plural (> dual) morpheme, straight from the pronominal declension (and hence found in the o-stems, which are to be interpreted as adjectives/nouns with postpositioned pronoun, much like the later Slavic definite adjectives).  All my books are packed (I'm moving tomorrow), but from memory we find the -oi- in the Skt. dat./abl.pl. (-oi-bhi-o-s) [one suspects from earlier *-oi-os] and in general in the ins.pl. *-o:is < *-oi-h1-s.  It also occurs in dual forms like Grk. -oiin/-oiun < *-oi-Hw-i-m.

 

It's a bit odd that the *-oi- forms should occur only in the Sanskrit adverbial cases: Dat./Abl., Instr. & Loc.pl. There is no trace of *-oi- in the Nom., Acc. or Gen.pl. (note that in pronouns the Gen.pl. ending is -es.a:m!). The analysis of -ebhyas, -ais and -es.u as locative *-oi + postposition is at least a possibility, even if the analogic influence of pronominal edings also played a role.

 

 

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>> [Piotr:] Greek *-si is clearly secondary, formed as if to gratify your insistence that the Loc.pl. "should also have *-i". Its late origin and analogical spread squares well with its untypical occurrence after vowels and sonorants in the Dat./Loc.pl. of most declensions. Cf. the spread of Lithuanian locatives in -e (pl. -s-e) < *-en.

> [Miguel:] Are there Greek forms with -su?

 

No, the poor devils were completely replaced by an aggressively spreading productive innovation. To return the question, are there any non-Greek forms with *-si or *-swi?

 

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>> [Piotr:] As the locative of *-i/*-u stems (and often of consonantal stems) is endingless, the Loc.pl. in *-su could be analysed -- rather conjecturally, I admit -- as a zero-ending locative plus *-su.

> [Miguel:] If *-i really had been the locative ending, we would have had *-is, not *-su.  Agglutination *works*...

 

Not if plurality was implied by *-su (as it is by "among" or "between") and if the locative ending was not specifically singular.

 

 

Piotr