Re: [tied] Nominative: A hybrid view

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 22267
Date: 2003-05-26

>Who says that *so was a definite article?

I was speaking of IndoTyrrhenian *se, the ancestor of IE *so.
In IE, *so came to be part of the *to- paradigm, being used
as an animate demonstrative in nominative. The stem *so
was originally undeclined which indicates that it once was only
a modifier, not needing case endings for its original function
as... a definite article. The same situation exists in English
where "the" has no other case forms and is used exclusively
to modify a noun. It cannot be used alone. This is what I
suggest was the original function of *so.


>Besides, if it was encliticized to animate nouns in early/
>pre-PIE, then why would it remain as a separate word (i.e.
>Greek definite article 'ho')?

Well, why does /den/ remain a seperate word despite /-en/
in Swedish? It's the same question and the same result.


- gLeN

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