> it
> obviously needs to be reconstructed in IE itself,
> but there is
> some point at which it was created
The creation of the nominative in *-s can be explained
as we assume an older ergative system in (pre)PIE. In
that system subjects of intransitive verbs were
unmarked (the absolutive), whereas in transitive
sentences the object was unmarked (absolutive) while
the subject was marked (ergative). It is likely that
this ergative case was the same as the genitive case,
which had the ending *-s. When the ergative system was
abandoned, a nominative system was created, and the
old ergative (= genitive) was used as nominative. This
theory explains why neuters (= inanimates) do not have
a nominative ending (as they were not able to be
subject of a transitive verb, they never had the
ergative case and only occur in the absolutive
(unmarked) case). It also explains why e.g. in Hittite
the nom.sg and gen.sg. of a-stems are identical (both
originate from the genetive/ergative case). For a
detailed elaboration of this theory see Beekes,
Indo-European Nominal Flection.
Gr. Alwin
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