Of course there was (though it had a
distinct form in the singular number only). It consisted of the bare stem (with
very minor complications in some declensions):
Nom. *ph2te:r, Voc. *ph2ter!
Nom. *d(i)je:u-s, Voc. *djeu!
Nom. *gHosti-s, Voc. *gHostei!
Nom. *suhnu-s, Voc. *suhnou!
After the loss of final laryngeals in
non-Anatolian IE dialects, female nouns had the following endings:
Nom. *-a:, Voc. -a
In thematic nouns, the stem-final
("thematic") vowel was *-e- in the vocative:
Nom. *wlkW-o-s, Voc. wlkW-e!
Whether the "vocative particle" was in fact
*o! is difficult to establish on comparative grounds, since interjections
are highly expressive items and do not necessarily develop like ordinary words
in terms of regular sound changes. On typological grounds, it's a safe bet that
the IEs should have had something like *o! to accompany their
vocatives.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2001 8:06 PM
Subject: [tied] Vocative case?
I'm wondering if there was a vocative case in PIE, and also
if there are
vocative particles comparing to O in other IE languages,
particularly
Greek, Lithuanian, or any Slavic tongues.
Max
Dashu