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

From: Rob
Message: 44095
Date: 2006-04-03

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Mate Kapoviæ <mkapovic@...> wrote:

> > As to the nature of *-ex (Piotr's *-ah2), I think the jury's still
> > out on whether the vowel is indeed the "thematic vowel". It seems
> > possible, at least, that this suffix is in fact unitary to begin
> > with.
>
> How so? It seems quite clear that it is *-e-h2. Cf. collectives like
> *wekWo:s which could be analyzed as *wekWosh2 > *wekWo:s for
> instance (and there is secondary Sanskrit vaca:m.si with a final -i
> which is probably this *-h2 analogically reintroduced again). And it
> does appear in the o/e-changing paradigm. It would not be a small
> coincidence that in *Hyug-o-m, *Hyug-e-h2, one would have
> *Hyug-o-/Hyug-e- in the singular, but just *Hyug- in the
> plural/collective with a suffix *-eh2 which "just
accidentally" > beginns with an *-e-.

With all due respect, I'm not sure just how confidently forms like
*wekWo:s < *wekWosx can be reconstructed. From what I understand,
almost every IE language had s-stem plural forms in *-es-ex.
Furthermore, while "syllabic" *x (= *h2) does become *i in
Indo-Iranian, it is currently difficult to trace the origin of forms
like _vaca:m.si_, so it's doubtful that we know all the facts here.

As for the "o/e-changing paradigm", I do not see how the alleged *o
and *e are necessarily related. What I currently see is the
reanalysis of the original suffix *-ós from being the (animate)
genitive singular ending to consisting of the nominative singular
ending plus a stem-formant *-ó. Along with that, it seems that the
inherited collective ending *-ex was used for the neuter plural, but
only in the nom./acc. (otherwise, the endings are the same as for the
masculines). Some of these collective forms were then treated as
singulars, which helped give rise to the traditional feminine declension.

- Rob