Re: [tied] Re: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?

From: enlil@...
Message: 31986
Date: 2004-04-18

Richard:
> What do you think the accusative of */wlkW&-s ya hWa:kW-s/ was?
>
> */wlkW&-m ya hWa:kW-s/ has no evidence to support it.
> */wlkW&-s ya hWa:kW-m/ is well supported, but contradicts your
> explanation.

You're misunderstanding. The accusative of */wlkW&-s ya hWa:kW-s/
would be */wlkW&-s ya hWa:kW-m/ because *ya is a LOCATIVE
and _seperate_ from hWakW-. The clause is showing _where_ the
eye is and hence cannot be expected to agree in case with
*hWa:kW-s. It wouldn't make sense in fact if it did.

1. *wlkW&-s here must be analysed as BOTH a nominative
AND a genitive (a case merger)
2. *ya is added for clarity, just as we similarly say "own"
as in "John's book" / "John's own book"
3. As per example in 2, "own" carries the genitive sense.
Likewise, since *wlkW&-s cannot elucidate the true case
of the noun, whether gen. or nom., *ya is the only thing
that can disambiguate the cases.
4. If *ya were a nominative, there's nothing "genitive"
about the morpheme to convey the genitive. In English,
"own" DOES have a possessive meaning inheirantly.
5. Ergo, even if we can get around inventing an endingless
animate nominative for a thematic stem that doesn't
exist, *ya cannot be nominative for functional reasons
because, simply, a nominative can't convey a genitive.
6. The only case with an endingless form to explain all of
the above is a locative which CAN convey a genitive.


So *ya is clearly locative and DOES NOT need to agree with the
possessed noun. Rather, _Jens_ predicts these forms of **-syo-z,
**-syo-m, **-syo-i, etc because he insists in a nominative
ending that is conclusively not there.

I accept what I see in Reconstructed IE, don't predict forms
that don't exist and I end up explaining the origin of *-syo
efficiently. I can't see the problem here. Shouldn't we be
questioning Jens' solution then for its inefficiency?


= gLeNeratioNEXT