Re: [tied] Bader's article on *-os(y)o

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:

> I have seen some of this before from other corners. That gives the
> opportunity to ask you how the original form "*dáma" is motivated.
> Why has it been given exactly this form? The vowel /o/ can hardly

be

> ascribed to the following /m/, given the genitive is *dém-s. If you
> posit gen. *dom-s instead, an account of Gk. despóte:s should be
> given, for that was a major pillar of the etymology in the first
> place.

Good points. I think there is another error in my reconstruction:
the presumption that 'house' had a sigmatic nominative. Why would
this be the case? A house is surely an inanimate noun -- I think it
is highly unlikely that the speakers of PIE believed that a house
could ever be capable of action.

Is the genitive *dem-s reconstructed solely on the basis of Gk.
despóte:s, or is there other evidence?

It seems that the 'house' root is tricky indeed. How do you explain
the contrast between e- and o-vocalism?

> That's the classical doctrine of Hirt and his friends. It does not
> explain the survival of a stress accent to this day. I have posted
> an integrated account somewhere on this list. It falls into place

if

> it is acknowledged that the IE accent had both stress prominence

and

> high tone.

Here is my line of reasoning. First, I presume that the Kurgan
culture was indeed the "original" speakers of PIE. They spread
outward from their homeland and subjugated other areas due to
superior military technology and/or tactics (I have read that most of
the (especially European) pre-IE cultures appear to have been non-
warlike). Then they imposed their language on the inhabitants;
however, the inhabitants, probably having spoken a rather different
language, could not speak PIE perfectly. Their 'reflexes' to the
original language comprise much (if not most) of the IE 'reflexes' to
PIE.

If all of this is the case, then all that one must further assume is
that (most of) the substratum languages had stress accent.

> That's a strange place to begin. There are two sets of "nouns",
> substantives and adjectives. Basically, substantives have root
> accent, while adjectives have suffixal accent. That may have come
> about by regular accent advancement to an added thematic vowel
> deriving an adjectival form from a substantive. The opposite
> derivation, from adj. to subst. by backward accent shift, will then
> be analogical.

This is also very reasonable to me.

For words such as *wlkWos, which do not readily suggest an adjectival
origin, perhaps its original meaning was something like 'howling
one.' What, then, drove the re-placement of the accent? Do you
think that it had something to do with the analogical adj.-to-subst.
backward accent shift?

> I find Schrijver's account (Lar. in Lat. 461) most appealing:
> Parallel with a number of cases showing vo > va in Latin, this may
> be seen as based on the stem of the acc.sg. *k^won-m. > *kwon-em >
> *kwan-em, whence can-em due to adjustment of the initial
> consonantism to the nom. *k^wo: > *kwo: > *ko:, itself later
> replaced by the backformation canis.

Hmm. First of all, I have a question: did PIE recognize a difference
between /kW/ (a labialized velar stop) and /kw/ (plain velar stop
followed by a labial approximant)? From what I have read, it seems
possible to distinguish between the two.

That having been said, did PIE *kWo-/kwo- > L ca-? There are many
Latin words (verbal and nominal) that have a-vocalism where e-
vocalism is expected based on the reconstructed PIE etymologies.

> My guess may be appalling to some: I suggest that *-es is the old
> ablative, *-os the old genitive, and that they shared the zero-

grade

> *-s. None of the forms can be dismissed: *-es is demanded by Balto-
> Slavic, Germanic and Latin, while *-os is demanded by Greek, Celtic
> and Tocharian (Anatolian may be disputed, but rather belongs here).
> Old Latin has some cases of -us reflecting *-os also, but there
> appears to be sensible distribution of *-os and *-es even in the
> oldest records, so it is of little use. Among the languages

choosing

> *-os, Greek has the adverb pres- in prés-bys/-gys 'old man, envoy'
> (supported by Arm. erêc' 'oldest man, priest'), and Celtic reflects
> *tares and *tres for 'across', These are loca adverbs, so it is
> reasonable to assume that, of the two, it is *-es that reflects a
> local case. Then Mycenaean <-e> in placenames meaning 'from' could
> simply reflect a surviving IE consonant-stem ablative *-es.

Interesting. Is it also possible that the L -is genitive resulted
from a contamination with i-stems? There was some confusion between
root nouns and i-stems, with nom./acc. pl. -e:s becoming shared
between the two (the nom. pl. from the i-stems, acc. pl. from root
nouns). Also cf. root noun dat./abl. pl. -ibus for expected -bus
(e.g. regibus instead of regbus).

- Rob