Re: [tied] PIE Word Formation Q&A (1)

From: Mate Kapović
Message: 44080
Date: 2006-04-01

On Pet, ožujak 31, 2006 4:35 pm, Piotr Gasiorowski reče:
> On 2006-03-31 16:21, Mate Kapović wrote:
>
>> What do you think about a theory that the feminine *-ih2 is identical
>> originally with Latin/Celtic/etc. genitives in -i:?
>
> It's difficult to give an opinion without knowing the specifics. How
> would you connect the two functionally?

A typical 'chauvinistic' (or patriarchal) view that the female is
something that belongs to the male. The 'genitive' in -i: would thus
originally be a possessive, and *wlkWih2 would be 'wolf's' > 'she-wolf'.
The claim would be that *-ih2 was an old possessive suffix which than
evolved into a feminine suffix (because of the mix up with the final *-h2
in *gWenh2 and with the interpretation of *-eh2 as feminine rather than
collective) and in some languages into a sort-of-a-genitive.

Mate