[tied] Re: IE lexical accent

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Me:
> > Yes, "in your opinion" (aka "my idle assumption"). There is no

*e: in

> > either forms so you have to dream it up in order to get your

results.

>
> Jens:
> > There certainly is an allomorph with /e:/ in the locative *pe:d-

su 'at

> > the feet' reflected in OIr. i:s and Alb. peùr-posh 'down'. Also,

the

> > Avestan loc.sg. daNm 'in the house' reflects a long vowel; thus

there

> > must have been a long-e: form somewhere in the inflection,
>
> Amazing how you warp the original meaning of the statement into

something

> else and then cloud the issue. Yes, there are forms with *e: in IE

itself!

> I was clearly talking about the _underlying_ forms however in some
> prestage of IE.

That indeed is where I suppose the /e:/ belongs in cases like this.

>
> We've gone over *pe:d-su. It's a bare locative with *-su attached

to it.

> Originally being *pe:d for both the singular and plural, its

length can

> be explained simply by the fact that it is a monosyllabic word.

What rule is that? Let's have five more examples. I do not know an
example of a root noun with lengthened grade specifically appearing
in the locative. It is a very strange attitude that you accept a
locative **pé:d, but just won't have it be significant.

> Mono-
> syllabic nominal forms are always given added length.

Not true.

> This same rule
> also explains a locative *de:m as well as the nominal origin of

verbs

> like *ste:u-. The word *ye:kWr is from an earlier noun *ye:kW and

in this

> respect differs a little from *wodr which derives from a _verb_

stem

> *wed-.

This is based on nothing at all.

> > Everybody else also accepts that *o and *e are there, but see

they are not

> > alone. In 'foot' you have *po:d-, *pod-, *ped-, and *pe:d-.

In 'man' you

> > have *Hne:r, *H2ner- and *H2nr-. For some reason you pick *pod-

and

> > *H2ner- as underlying.
>
> The reason is clear. The nominative is automatically lengthened.

This

> case then cannot give us the original vocalism. The accusative

represents

> the original vocalism. The weak cases are lesser cases that have

reduced

> vocalism in many paradigms. Ergo, they too cannot be taken as

representing

> original vocalism. Only the accusative is our best hope.
>
> So yes, I pick *pod- (as reflected in *pod-m) and *xner- (as

reflected

> in *xner-m). The choice is clear unless you have a bias for this

strange

> length rule.

I have a bias for regularity. That can be achieved by positing *pe:d-
, *de:m-, *H2ner-, *ye:kW-r/n- and *we:d-r/n-.

>
>
> Me:
> > Where on earth is the reflex of **wedns? Why isn't _this_ double-
> > asterisked?
>
> Jens:
> > One might say the same about (*)*wedno's.
>
> Hittite /widenas/

Then that's where it is.

>
> > If you accept *wedno's you would also accept *yekW-n-o's which

has a

> > nom.-acc. *ye':kW-r.
>
> Yes. You have the reduction of *e: in the strong cases to *e and

the

> addition of *-os, not *-s, to the heteroclitic stem. With *wodr,

the

> genitive shows the root as *wedn-. The *e here is yet again

representing

> the reduced form of *o in the nominoaccusative *wodr and *-os is

again

> attached to the consonant-ending stem.

You can get *wed-n- by shortening **we:d-n-, and *wod-r by
lengthening **we:d-r. I therefore derive the form *wód-r from an
earlier collective which makes excellent sense and represents a
derivation one has to use for other examples also. That makes the
historical collective *wéd-o:r (or whatever we may agree on) a later
analogical creation.

>
> > That ought to count for something, making it a fair assumption

that

> > strong forms of such paradigm forms can have o- or e:-vocalism.
>
> I never objected to that. However, lengthened stems are not

original.

I think they are. That assumption is the cornerstone of my ablaut
investigations; I'll give it up the minute I hear something better
or just half as good. By "original" I here mean "present before the
known ablaut rules began to work". I would suppose the lengthened-
grade root vocalism expressed a note of durativity or habituality,
perhaps also collectivity.

> > Now, you have also told us a story about the nom.sg. of thematic

stems

> > in *-os, saying that this is in origin a misanalyzed genitive. I

somehow

> > got this backwards, it *is* hard to remember since there are no

facts to

> > tell one how the story was, it has to be remembered by heart.
>
> At least you get it now. Excellent.

It is not so excellent if I also understand that it cannot be true.
If the thematic nominative in *-o-s were a resegmented old genitive
in *-os it should not be possible for it to be unaccented which it
often is. And its vocalic part should not alternate the way the
thematic vowel does, seeing that the vowel of the genitive ending
alternates in a totally different way. This means that they are not
related.

> Concerning the thematic differences between dur. and aor.:
> > There isn't. The thematic form of *kWe'r-t is *kWe'r-e-t, like

that of

> > *gWhe'n-t is *gWhe'n-e-t. The generally accepted reason we do

not find

> > the structure *kWe'r-e-t as an aorist injunctive is that the

aorist

> > subjunctive became a thematic present, not aorist.
>
> Alright. Let me see if I understand correctly. You're saying that

the

> durative and the aorist were both athematic at one time.

Yes.

> Are you
> saying that the durative was marked with *-i while aorist wasn't?

Yes. Only, the durative could also be unmarked ("injunctive
present").

> So thematicizing the verb forms caused the subjunctive. This

subjunctive

> later came to form the thematic present. Is that it?

Yes. It was apparently an ongoing process before and after the
disintegration of the protolanguage. Some original subjunctives had
already become indicatives in PIE, others followed in the individual
branches.

As always, the role of Anatolian is hard to make out. The only
simple answer I can see is that of Schindler: Anatolian abolished
the very structure "full-grade + thematic vowel" with verbs, even
including the roots that formed it. It looks like excessive zeal in
the abolition of the subjunctive. That only makes sense if there
*was* a subjunctive in pre-Anatolian and some subjunctives were
already being used as indicatives in a linguistic norm that was
reacted against.

> Can you draw me
> a pretty diagram?

That has been done many times. It looks like this:

Durative ("present")
inj. *gWhén-t
ind. *gWhén-t-i
sbj. *gWhén-e-t(i)
-> prs.inj./ind. *gWhén-e-t(i) => sbj. *gWhén-e-e-t(i)

Punctual ("aorist")
inj. *kWér-t
ind. *(H1)é *kWer-t ? (role of augment unsettled)
sbj. *kWér-e-t(i)
-> prs.inj./ind. *kWér-e-t(i) => prs.sbj. *kWér-e-e-t(i)

>
> > So you believe there was originally an athematic present and a

thematic

> > present which were formally distinct but functioned the same?

And also

> > both an athematic aorist and a thematic aorist of identical

function,

> > which however coalesced phonetically?
>
> No, I believe in simplicity. I feel that all verb forms were once
> thematic, whether it was durative, aorist or perfect. The rule of

Syncope

> is that *e reduces to *a and *a becomes zero. So, the only reason

that

> some forms should come to be athematic and others not lies merely

in

> the vocalism of the thematic vowel. Duratives contained *-e- while

the

> aorists and perfects were given the disappearing *-a-. The

differences

> in vocalism between aspects is very reminiscent of Semitic grammar
> coincidentally.

It may even be adequate for that. I can't see how it could be
construed to fit the facts of IE. In all we have to go by the root
aorist and the root present are structured the same. You introduce a
difference in vocalism between them, and for simplicity's sake at
that. It is surely much simpler (and free of arbitrary choices) to
have them be strucured alike and form their subjunctives in the same
way, and have some subjunctives become indicatives in pre-PIE times
already, just a they did (continued to do) in historical times.

It may be noted that the reduplicated thematic present type *sí-sd-e-
ti will emerge from the subjunctive of the type *dhi-dhéH1-ti (sbj.
*dhí-dhH1-e-t[i]).

I am not sure to what extent both aspect stems were represented
among the earliest round of thematic presents. Perhaps they were all
_aorist_ subjunctives.

>
> > If Finnish has had syncope, how is the rule to be formulated?
>
> I don't know. You're the one theorizing it so get to it and

theorize

> something credible ;)

No, read again, it's the other way around. I do not assume syncope
for Finnish, and I do not need it. You assume an underlying vowel in
the ending *-it, which in some forms is not present, so I ask you by
what rule you made it disappear. That sounds fair to me.

> Me:
> > Afterall, if the genitive had *-os in the singular, we should

expect

> > plural **-oses right?
>
> Jens:
> > Wrong, of course. The genitive plural should not have a

nominative

> > plural morpheme hanging on it.
>
> That was my whole point. We don't find it which means that

plurality

> in the genitive is not original to the language like it is for the
> nominative and accusative cases.

What *is* the point? The gen.sg. morpheme *is* *-os. In pronominal
forms like *tóysoom we do seem to have a collocation of a plural
stem and the genitive morpheme (*-s, zero-grade of *-os). It is
anybody's guess what *-oom is.

Jens