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

On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 21:18:28 +0000, Glen Gordon <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>
>Miguel:
>>And what assumption do you use to explain the miraculously disappearing
>>*y? If *yu- is the zero-grade of *yeu-, then what is *u-?
>
>"Entropy" comes to mind. Your idea of *us becoming *yus is like a table
>that builds itself from scratch. It's less strange for *y- to disappear,
>even
>if it's for just one word, than it is for *y- to show up from nowhere.

Addition of a glide (w-, y-, h-) to an initial vowel is nothing to be
surprised of. Happens all the time. A case in point might be Albanian <u>
~ <ju> "you (pl.)", which is derived from *usme, not *ju(:)s (PIE *y- does
not give Albanian j-). In Greek, all initial u-'s became hu- (by way of
yu-?). In Slavic, u- becomes wU- > vU-. It's not surprising that a form
*ú(:)s "you (pl.)" acquired an initial glide (after the formation of the
obliques *usmé and *wos). Slavic <vy> "you" is usually seen as coming from
an analogical acc.pl. *wons (and <my> "we" from *mons), but I see no reason
to exclude a derivation *ú:s > vy directly (and <my> < *mo:s, a by-form of
*me:s).

>>The use of a verbal or nominal root is unheard in the personal pronouns.
>
>That's not a reasonable expectation. Not all pronouns may be replaced by
>"verbal/nominal roots" in any particular language. However, this same
>process _does_ occur in other languages. The immediate example in my
>mind is Japanese

Japanese? You know that's not a valid comparison.

>>If the root were *yeu-, a root noun derived from it should be *yut-
>
>While I'm listening to what you're saying, I don't agree with you. You're
>thinking IE as it came to be, not as it was. From what I can gather now,
>the 2pp stem in Mid IE was *ya:u "a/the group", an endingless stative noun
>derived from *yeu- which was meant to refer indirectly to the 2pp. In
>fact, it's a very natural usage and is even used in English. Eg: "What has
>the group decided?" for "What have _yo'll_ decided?" The use of endingless
>verbs exists elsewhere in IE, for example *nu "now" < "being new" <
>*neu- "to be new" from which we obtain the adjective *new-o-s.

*nu is not a noun.

>>Actually, the root is in my opinion *yeuh1-,
>
>It's an "opinion", not fact per se. Since it's safe to say that *yeu-g-
>should be grouped with the above root, its existence negates your
>theory.

What counts is the facts. All apparent cases of *yeu- can be explained as
*yeuh1- (Skt. yá:u-ti (*yeuH-ti), yuváti (*yuHé-ti), yu:thá-, yú:na-. Lith.
jáutis).

How to interpret the facts is another matter. I think the alternation
*yeuh1- ~ *yeug- follows naturally from the uvular hypothesis. If *yeug-
was originally *yeuG-, with voiced/glottalized uvular stop /G"/, such a
sound has a natural tendency to become fricative (cf. the Kartvelian
cognate/borrowing *uG-el- "yoke", with velar fricative /G/ < uvular stop
/G"/).

Speaking of Caucasian cognates/borrowings, the NE Caucasian word for "yoke"
is also interesting: *ruk.(k.)- (Lak ruk., Nakh duq., Dargva *duk.,
Avar-Andi *ruL.L.V). Compare Armenian <luc> (*lug-). It's possible that
Armenian reflects a proto-form *liug-óm, and that we have a doublet *liúG-

> *yeug-/*yeuh1- vs. *líuG- > leig- "binden" (Lat. ligare, Hitt. link-,

etc.).

>>Since the nominal plural is *-es, never *-s, that would have given a
>>paradigm:
>
>If the original meaning was a singular stative noun *ya:u "_a_ group",
>it calls into question whether we have an original plural marker, or
>a nominative mistaken as a plural based on *weis.

You mean *wéyes?


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