Re: [tied] The Rise of Feminines (aka Where's Waldo)

From: enlil@...
Message: 32710
Date: 2004-05-18

Jens:
> So you are positing thematic accusative singular *-o-m, athematic
> genitive plural *-om.

Me:
> No, you're being a jackass. Reread the posts.

Actually, after Jens was being such a jackass I presumed that the
above was more distortion of what I said without looking at it
except at a glance. I saw "thematic genitive" where there should be
athematic, in which case, yes, this IS what I think. I apologize.

But you have some blame in this for overcomplicating things and
muddling thematic and athematic paradigms together in a single
sentence for no reason other than to confuse more.

Just simply say that accusative is *-m and genitive *-om for
all declensions, period. No more nonsense. As such, since the
thematic genitive reflects *-o-om, it's clear that treating the
suffix as a seperate unit (as if it were a particle once when
it never was) was a way of keeping a distinction even in the
thematic between the accusative and genitive. This also was a
strategy for keeping the nominative singular and nominative
plural from colliding, but as I said, the genitive singular
could now not use the same tactic as the plural in *-o:s, therefore
it opted for *-osyo.

We have to accept this account because there is nothing else that
explains why the genitive singular adopted such a different ending.
Now everything is accounted for in the simplest manner possible.

Frankly, I don't know why we've wasted so much time on this.
You should be agreeing rather than twisting my chronology all
around to blasphemize what I'm saying.


= gLeN