Re: [tied] Morphology (20/20)

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 16596
Date: 2002-11-04

Miguel:
>The NA stem is *i, the oblique (and du., pl.) has *e- (< **a-).
>The reason for this is not clear.

The reason is very clear. The stem *i- is the result of earlier
*ei- put in zero-grade in Late IE. Zero-grade is the usual grade
given to pronouns. The oscillation of Mid IE's stem *ei and its
enclitic form *e harks back to Indo-Tyrrhenian's move from a
V-shaped vowel system (*i, *u, *a) to a centralized one (*&, *a)
when accented *i became diphthongized *ei but enclitic *i became
*e (schwa). The same goes for many ancient pronouns in IE where
similar alternations occur.


- gLeN


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