Re: [tied] Nominative: A hybrid view

Rob:

>Given the evidence, one should at least accept that PIE and
>Proto-Uralic inherited a case form -m from their parent language.

Of course, we should. Since both language groups insist on using
*-m as an accusative marker... then that means that it's an
accusative marker until you prove otherwise. Efficiency of thought
wins, you lose.

You're using the same troubling pseudo-arguement that Jens
likes employing: "We don't know that it WASN'T true so there-
fore we should consider it being true."

Uh, no, we shouldn't.
I'm not going to waste my time with that kind of rebuttal.

>If I may ask, do you have any examples of such words in Etruscan?

I offer /maris'/ "boy", /nefis'/ "grandson", /Tins'/ "Jupiter". It is
often written as a palatal /s'/.

>What's interesting to note is that the Etruscan genitive is also in -s(i).

What's also interesting is that Uralic uses *sa for 3ps. The same
pronoun pops up in EskimoAleut. What's also interesting is that
Uralic doesn't have a sigmatic nominative nor a sigmatic genitive.

>Yes, the dimorphia of which you speak certainly seems to be a "hole"
>in my theory. And admittedly, I have no satisfactory explanation of
>it at this time. I suggested two possibilities, however: one is that
>the distinction was caused by a difference in intonation, to indicate
>which case was used; or, that the -os genitive in root nouns was
>borrowed from the "thematic" class.

Both requiring more assumption on top of an already assumptive
theory. You need something more substantial to cover that hole.

>The inanimate is not completely unmarked for the nominative. It
>takes the same ending as the accusative.

Inanimates take no ending at all for the accusative, except in
pronominals like *kWi-d.

>However, this leaves two questions:
>
>1. Why were only animates marked by a demonstrative?
>2. Why would later alleged inanimate demonstrative *to (earlier
>*ta ?) be reduplicated to form *toto > *tot& > *tod?

Well, simple. The stage when IE adopted the nominative was
not analytic. Quite un-analytic.

The object of an action was once marked for definiteness by
different case endings, either the accusative (definite) or the
partitive (indefinite). The subject lacked case marking. So to
convey definiteness here, a demonstrative was needed. Now
this early demonstrative *s& was only used for subjects and
since subjects were only animate, inanimates were never
marked by *s&. Even when inanimates were used in ergative
sentences, inanimate agents were in the weak case (not
nominative, nor accusative). Nouns in weak cases were not
marked for definiteness at all because they were not in the
primary sphere of an action (not being subject nor direct
object).

>They acquired different meanings in others (e.g. Latin, if one takes "suus,
>-a, -um" 'his/her/its/their (own)' as deriving
>from *so).

No, this is from a reflexive pronoun, *su: (also *swe). We all
know it doesn't derive from *so.


- gLeN

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