Re: Back to Slava

From: Rob
Message: 36158
Date: 2005-02-07

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

> We do not need to explain everything we can observe to be sure the
> observations are correct.

True. I guess I'm just taking it one step further. :)

> I do see a possible locus of diffusion however: When adjectrives
> were formed from nouns by the addition of the thematic vowel, as
> *bhr.-t- 'carrier' => *bhr.tó- 'carried', the accent shifted to
> the second syllable, so, in this type, the substantive had an
> earlier accent than the adjective, so tomós backformed tómos.
> Substantives are of lower animacy than adjectives. I would
> however like there to be a broader basis for that.

There does seem to be some sort of "contrastive accent", at least in
Greek and Vedic, whereby nouns tend to take recessive accent and
adjectives tend to take final accent. I wonder if that was the
result of Indo-European prosody. What I'm thinking is that, at a
late stage, adjectives tended to be proclitic, prosodically
speaking. Combined with a weakening of the earlier accentual
paradigm, accent on adjectives was levelled and tended to be
rightmost since the primary accent in the *phrase* was on the head
noun. As I've stated before, it seems to me that thematic
adjectives were originally adjectival genitives in nature (e.g.
bhr.tó- '[something] carried' < 'of/from a carrier'). Thus the
earliest thematic adjectives would have been end-accented as well.

- Rob