On Mon, 22 Jul 2002 00:11:13 +0200 (MET DST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
<
jer@...> wrote:
>On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
>> The fact remains that -oj^ is *only* found in former feminines (or
>> words secondarily attracted to a feminine declension, such as neuter
>> io-stems), which is hard to explain what we're dealing with is a
>> suffix *-dhi.
>
>In the wo/ea-inflection, -oj^ is not a "general oblique", but locative
>only. The genitive has -woy and is rhus an o-stem. I refuse to see that as
>a sign of old feminine gender.
I don't think it's fully justified to claim that the ea-stems are
"wo-stem[s] in the sg. vs. ea-stem[s] in the pl." (p. 113 of Birgit's
excellent book). The nom. in -i may be either *-io or *-ia:, the Ins.
[based on the Nom.] (-eaw) is clearly *-ia:, and for the Loc. and Abl.
I have now suggested a link with feminine forms in Sanskrit and/or
Slavic. That leaves only the genitive/dative -woy as an intrusion
from the wo-stems (*io-stems). And even that may be interpreted as
coming from the a:-stems, if the development was *-oya:s > -oy. As you
can see, I'm still torn between the two possibilities... This would
make the Loc. in -(w)oj^ again from *-oyh2- > *-oyy-, and akin to the
Slavic/Sankrit instrumental in -ojoN, -aya:.
Let's see if I can get my story straight. A Sanskrit-type paradigm
like
G. *-oyéh2os > *-oyá:s
DL. *-oyéh2i > *-oyá:i
I. *-oyh2éh1 > *-oyyá:
(besides non-Sanskrit shortened *-oa:s, *-oa:i > *-a:s, *-a:i), would
have yielded two forms in pre-Armenian:
GDL. -oy
I. -oj^
The first one (identical to o-stem -oy < *-osyo) was only selected in
the ea-stems (due to the presence in their ranks of old neuters in
*-yom, *-yosyo). The second one became a "general oblique" in the
irregular (and short) feminine nouns kin "woman" and mi "one" and a
Locative (-> Ablative) in the ea-stems (cf. e.g. Ins. > Dat. in Gothic
a-stems [o-stems]). As for the regular a:-stems, they presumably had
chosen the short forms of the feminine oblique (*-a:s, *-a:i), which
unfortunately subsequently eroded away, necessitating the adoption of
a new oblique, based on the *ih2-stems, e.g. G. *-ih2as > *-i(y)as >
-i.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...