Re: Proper methodology (was: RE: [tied] Re: Mother of all IE langua

On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 15:06:15 +0000, Glen Gordon <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>>[Szemerenyi] has realized that the *y- in the nominative form is secondary,
>>as is shown by the oblique forms *usmé and *wos.
>
>No. That doesn't show *us > *yus -- If it were so, we'd have nothing to
>explain the miraculously appearing *y without more baseless assumption.
>Rather, it shows exactly what I'm saying: *yus > *us.

And what assumption do you use to explain the miraculously disappearing *y?
If *yu- is the zero-grade of *yeu-, then what is *u-?

>As I said, *yus < *yeu- "to join, group".
>It explains the origin, the semantics and the phonetics in the most simple
>way I can think of or have come across.

There are several objections to be made against such a hypothesis.
The use of a verbal or nominal root is unheard in the personal pronouns.
If the root were *yeu-, a root noun derived from it should be *yut- (pl.
*yutes), not *yu-. Actually, the root is in my opinion *yeuh1-, from which
a root noun *yu:- (pl. *yuwes) is derivable in principle (whether that
could have meant "a group of people" is another question). Since the
nominal plural is *-es, never *-s, that would have given a paradigm:

nom. *yúh1es
acc. *yuh1-s-mé
encl. *yoh1s

Instead of actually attested:

nom. *yú(:)s
acc. *us-mé
encl. *wos


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...