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

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 28274
Date: 2003-12-10

On Tue, 09 Dec 2003 19:28:17 +0100 (MET), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
<jer@...> wrote:

>There is no evidence in Celtic for the nominatives

I don't understand. OIr. tú is a nominative.

We have:

1. mé < acc. (*me)
2. tú < nom. (*tu)

And likewise in the plural we have:

1. sní < acc. (*n.smé)
2. sí < nom. (*swéy)


It's the same principle at work as I posit for the PIE plural/dual forms:

1. *mu-áti > *wéy < acc. (less commonly *més < nom.)
*mu-íki > *wéh1 < acc. (no evidence for **móh3)

2. *tu-átu > *yús < nom. (less commonly *swéy < acc.)
*tu-íku > *yúh3 < nom. (no evidence for **swéh1)

As we know from the sudy of split-ergativity, first person is higher up the
animacy scale than second person, so this is exactly what we might expect.

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