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

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 4805
Date: 2000-11-22

Miguel concerning *os-adjectives as genitive nouns:
>An interesting idea if we turn it around. Genitives are quite often
>derived from adjectives.

I don't see how this can be turned around in a reasonable way. You seem to
be presuming that the two semantic categories, "adjective" and "noun", as
they exist in English, were distinguished in the earliest stages of IE.

Aside from minor differences, both the IE "adjective" and the IE noun are
declined in similar fashion and indistinguishable in form. It seems clear
that the so-called "adjective" is in fact better understood as a noun in the
earliest stages of IE. An example of this semantic blur is Latin "bellum"
which can mean both "beautiful" and "the beautiful thing". It doesn't matter
which meaning you attribute to it, the message is understood the same (eg:
"It is beautiful" vs. "It is a/the beautiful thing.").

In regards to adjectives modifying nouns in IE, we again have the same
interchangeable situation. An English example like "the green car" can just
as equally be phrased "the car, the green one". Although this is awkward in
an analytical language such as this where a clear grammatical distinction
between "noun" and "adjective" exists, both phrases would appear exactly the
same in IE. In fact, there is little need for adjectives anyway. An
adjective like "green" might even be treated as an IE verb and we could
rephrase it as "the car which _is green_". But again, we might consider
"...which is green", which could be stated in a single word in IE, also as a
modifying adjective or as a second noun. All in all, there is no need or
point to distinguish noun and adjective.

So, I can't agree that the IE genitive derives from IE adjectives because I
don't believe that there truely were adjectives in the earliest forms of IE.
To add to this, while the date at which "adjectives" might be considered a
seperate semantic category from "nouns" in IE is probably a late one, it is
clear that the genitive in *-es must be far more ancient than IndoEuropean
itself - It is found also in Etruscan and Lemnian.

>The non-thematic genitive in *-os might well
>derive from the o-stem's (adjectival) nom.sg. in *-os. Which leaves
>the question: where does gen.pl. *-om come from, from the neuter?

Miguel, you're just answering questions with more questions... and they are
unlikely questions at that. The gen.pl. *-om is also found in Etruscan as
/-un/ and is therefore quite archaic. It might also be seen in Uralic as an
*n-terminating genitive. However, I have trouble tracing it beyond the
protoSteppe stage c. 9000 BCE. I'm not sure from what it could be derived or
whether the postposition should be reconstructed in its earliest form as
*umV or *unV... or for that matter, whether it was ever a postposition at
all! Argghh!! Damn that genitive plural ending! It mocks me! :)

>Definite adjectives are rather commonplace in Indo-European. They
>arose (and largely disappeared again) independently in Germanic,
>Slavic and possibly other IE groups (Tocharian?). In Slavic, the
>definite adjective is formed by postfixing a pronominal element
>("article") [opinions differ on whether it's relative *jo- or
>anaphoric *i ~ *e]. PIE was SOV, so of course it would have been
>postfixed.

But Miguel, obviously the adjectives are themselves neither definite or
indefinite. There are no exclusively "definite" or "indefinite" adjectives
in IE. You just have admitted that any attestations concerning this are
derived from the attachment of pronominal elements and are therefore a
secondary development.

As for whether IE *-m is a definite accusative or just an accusative... I
dunno. I suppose particles like *e, when used to modify nouns, can help to
create a definite or indefinite object. But then again, if adjectives are a
late semantic category, the usage of *e might have been more restricted in
the past - perhaps only used to refer to the object (aka: "him, her, it")
and not as a noun-modifying demonstrative (like "this" or "that"). Without
having words like *e at our disposal to convey definiteness, I suppose one
would be reduced to using *-m as a definite accusative while the ablative
would be used as an indefinite accusative or partitive (just like in
Uralic).

>AFAIK, the accusative does not convey definiteness in IE (i.e. one
>cannot omit it for an indefinite object, as one can in e.g. Turkish).

Probably not in Late postAnatolian IE.

>It is interesting, however, that only the o-stem neuters have the
>accusative *-m marker, which would make some sense if the o-stems >were
>indeed originally definite (substantivized) adjectives.

I believe you're talking about *-om, the genitive plural, again.

>I do believe that all instances of the thematic vowel can be
>etymologically connected, and traced back to the "anaphoric" pronoun
>*i ~ *e: added to nouns, it made definite adjectives (many later
>substantivized, o-stems);

In order for this to work, you must assume that these adjectives were
somehow specifically definite. I don't see this. How is this quality
attested? If these adjectives (which pretty much includes the whole
kit-and-kaboodle of IE adjectives) were indeed definite already, it doesn't
make much sense that many IE languages would agree to attach more
superficial pronominal elements to them. Which one is it: Are the definite
adjectives reconstructable in common IE or aren't they? If they are, your
evidence contradicts this.

Your analysis of the thematic vowel is another overly mechanical solution.


- gLeN

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