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

On Wed, 22 Nov 2000 06:51:16 , "Glen Gordon"
<glengordon01@...> wrote:

>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.

PIE had adjective-forming suffixes (such as *-io-, *-ro- or indeed
[o-grade +]*-o-), so the category of "adjective" must have been a
meaningful one at some level. As to the relationship between
adjectives and the genitive, cf. the Anatolian adjective forming
suffixes Hitt. -ala-, Cun. Luw. -assi-. In fact, Luwian (and Lydian)
lack a genitive as such, and the equivalent of genitive constructions
are made by affixing -assi- + case ending (Lyd. -li-) to any noun.

>>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.

Evidence for this? AFAIK, the Etr. gen.pl. ending is -ras (pl. *-ra-
+ gen. *-si).

>>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.

No, I'm talking about the neutr.sg.

>>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.

You should have a look at the history of Germanic and Slavic
adjectives. For example, Macedonian <beliot dom> ("the white house"),
has a definite article <-ot> (ultimately from PIE *to[s]) added to a
formerly definite adjective <beli> (< *be^lyjI), made by affixing the
pronominal element -jI (< *yos or *is) to the nom.masc.sg. form
<be^lU> < *bhe:los "white". All I'm saying is that *bhe:los itself
might once have been a definite adjective made by affixing the
pronominal element *-os (apparently with vrddhi) to the
nominal/adjectival root *bhel.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...