Re: [tied] Re: PIE comparative

On 2006-01-14 00:59, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> And then this -i- from -ro-/-u- and presumably i-stem
> adjectives was subsequently transferred to the others?

o-stems also have archaic compositional variants with *-i (e.g. *dwi-),
so no transfer is needed to explain "the others".

>>This *h1es-
>>could be a root noun corresponding to *h1es-ti, in which case the
>>etymological meaning of the compound would have been something like
>>'enjoying the state of bigness' (e.g. being big relative to other things).
>
>
> Sounds possible, although I can't think offhand of a
> comparable comparative formation in another language.

An afterthought: do Greek -i(:)[*h]o:n, Gmc. *-izan- reflect
*(-i)-h1s-o:n as an alternative to *(-i)-h1o:s? This might explain Gmc.
*-o:zan as *-o-h1s-o:n (with thematic *-o- restored from the basic form
of the adjective).

Piotr