Re: Accusative *-m

--- In cybalist@egroups.com, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:

>
> >There is one thing that has puzzled about IE acc *-m, though.
>Sanskrit -m
> >is weak, Latin -m disappears in poetry
> >according to metric rules, Greek says -m -> -n, and everywhere else
> >it disappears. Slavic nasalizes. So perhaps -m was only a
> >nasalization of the previous vowel? Note the use of -m in present

day

> >Portuguese.
>
> What previous vowel? The accusative *-m ending IS the vowel. At any

rate,

> this nasal ending is so widespread in IE languages as to give no

doubt that

> the ending was *-m. The IE plural accusative is *-ns which in all

likelihood

> was an anciently combined ending consisting of *-m (acc.sg.) plus *-

es

> (plural). Finally, the accusative *-m isn't even unique to IE.

There is a

> Uralic accusative *-m too.
>
> To explain the IE reflexes as independent nasalization is far more
> extravagant than the consensus solution.
>
> - gLeN
>
>

Independent? Of what?
A thought experiment: All Romance langauges become extinct. You find
a Portuguese inscription sg. homem, pl homens. Now reconstruct the
root. That will of course be *homem- (you have no chance of knowing
the h- is mute). The -ns of the plural will "in all likelihood" be
derived from -ms.

Torsten