Re: [tied] The Penultimate Accent Rule

For once, Glen is pellucidly clear. He makes an assertion even I
understand. The 'suffix' he gives as *-xte:r, one which so far I
understand ONLY occurs in familial terms (and thus, means
'close-family-member') was a re-analysis of something older.

It even makes sense that 'father' is built on a feed-nourish word. If
mommy has a man who brings home the bacon and feeds the children, and
does not behave like a play-the-field churl, well, he's a good man,
and she'll address him as such, and us little-ones will pick up on it.

A provocative thought: familial terms are probably "women's words", in
that we all really do learn our native-langauge at our
mother-and-sibling's knees. Consider the words we men use for
excretory and sexual functions in the locker room vs. what we say when
one's mother is present. Am I correct that this distinction in
register is essentially a universal of human language?

> The irregularity of *pxte:r and *maxte:r was not created out of
> nothing. It was created by analogy. These words are not isolates.
> They are part of a larger system of kinship terminology. I'm
> stating that *pxte:r, being derived from *pax- "feed, nourish"
> and *-te:r [actor suffix], had been created in Late IE, long
> after the loss of final vowels in Mid IE. The suffix *-te:r
> itself has a long and tortured prehistory.
>
> Now, since *pxte:r, *maxte:r, *bhraxte:r and *dhugxte:r all appear
> to have the same *-xte:r suffix, it begs to reason that there has
> been assimilatory processes at work here. Since we know
> where *pxte:r REALLY comes from, it would appear that THIS word
> is the source of the spread of an otherwise nonsensical and
> unused suffix *-xte:r.
>
> Here's how. As *pxte:r replaced whatever word came before it
> for "father", it was apparently misanalysed as being a combination
> of a nursery term for father, perhaps **(a)pa-, plus some strange
> ending *-xte:r. Hence, by simple analogy...
>
> MidIE Late IE
> *ame **(a)ma- + *xte:r => *maxte:r
> *beraxWe **bhrax- + *xte:r => *bhraxte:r
> *deuk:e **dhug- + *xte:r => *dhugxte:r
>