Re: [tied] Re: PIE genitive plural *-o:m, a possible analysis

----- Original Message -----

From: Patrick Ryan

To: Cybalist

Sent: Saturday, April 22, 2006 3:54 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Re: PIE genitive plural *-o:m, a possible analysis

 

 Since Piotr has been kind enough to outline his assumptions in his postings on PIE word-formation, I feel that I should also outline mine for possible criticism and correction.

 

The simplest permissible word-form in PIE was *CA, where *A represents the Ablaut-vowel that, at the next earliest stage, manifested itself as *é when stress-accented, or *Ø when not stress-accented.

 

This word-form is restricted to a very few common words such as *né, 'not'; and *té, 'you (singular)'.

 

The commonest word-form was *CACA, which, in accordance with the rule that the penultimate syllable was stress-accented, appears in the next earliest stage as *CéCØ (from *CÁCA).

 

The PAA language from which PIE derived had not yet developed predominantly tri-consonantal roots so a basic vocabulary in the form of *CACA roots was available for adoption.

 

This PAA language had three nominal inflections in the singular: -*wV, 'topical'; -*yV, 'relational'; and -*Ø, 'absolutive'; this can be seen in the conservative pronomnal forms: *téw-, *téy-, and *té.

 

Nominally, -*yV was retained, and appears as a locative/genitive; -*Ø as a vocative.

 

All suffixes originally had the minimal form -*CA (from *CÁ) since they were not "invented" but represent independent words applied to indicate inflections: *sA was added to animate nouns to indicate ergativity (borrowed from the grammar of the original Caucasian language of the new PIE speakers; meaning simply: 'this one alone'), and in athematic nouns appears as -*s due to the root stress-accent (CéC-sØ). Another *sA, from a different source, denoted 'state' or 'quality' for inanimate nouns from athematic verbal roots (-*s roots). 

 

A PAA device for indicating plurality in its widest sense, shared by this PAA language and adopted by PIE, was ultimata stress-accent, which indicated plurality in nouns and durativity in verbs: *CACÁ, leading to PIE *CØCé-s in the ergative plural.

 

If follows from these assumptions that no very early PIE root can have the form **CóC- or **CóC-s.

 

There are a number of factors that complicate this fairly straight forward development (originally long vowels, roots with 'laryngeals', epenthetic vowels, eventual preference for root-vowel stress-accent, etc.) but this will suffice for discussion purposes.

 

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