Re: The Hoffmann suffix

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...>
wrote:

> On 05-02-19 12:59, tgpedersen wrote:
>
> > Gothic has wato, watins "water". Is this the Hoffmann suffix, and

if

> > so, what is it doing in a paradigm that is heteroclitic elsewhere
> > -er, -in- etc? Are there two 'nominatives', one in -o:, one in -

er,

> > or is the latter a 'forgotten case'?
>
> No, it isn't the Hoffmann suffix. It is a surviving root noun, as
> opposed to Eng. water etc., which was converted into a thematic

neuter,

> *watra- < *wodr-o-, in early Germanic, at a time when the *-r

nominative

> was still used.

That is, the *-r nominative of the heteroclitic inflection, you mean?
But the question is (I think), since all these heteroclitic neuters
denote stuffs (for want of a better term, ie. something in which
something can be; or locations) why can't the *-r have been an old
locative? Cf. Dutch "er word gedanst", Danish "der danses" with *-r
_locatives_ as formal subjects? That would make a place open for a
nominative *-oH in the paradigm, which would show up in Gothic? It's
not that I don't recognize that your traditional analysis in terms of
two independent paradigms, and conversion of the "water" word from
one to the other, is possible, but is there compelling evidence for
it?


Torsten