>As regards the IE feminine, I read somewhere that the -H (laryngeal)
> >ending originally denoted a collective, the idea being that it was
> >connected with femininity through herd animals (cows, goats etc.) >being
>females. Perhaps also IE families were polygamous. So that men >such as
>sailors (nauta) or farmers (agricola) were seen as a >collective (team?).
Well, I'm not too sure about that idea but I am toying with the idea that
*-H2 derives an earlier form *-hi. I believe Sumerian (related to IE under
the Nostratic family) has a similar suffix for plurals and we wouldn't hope
to find this suffix in closer languages like Altaic or Uralic since they
seem to lack laryngeals.
If the "agricola" example is related then perhaps *-h (*-H2) was originally
just an inanimate plural that eventually came to be used for either gender
whether lesbian or not to convey a collective sense. Then eventually used to
denote an animate agent of an action regardless of plurality. Just a
thought. Talk amongst yourselves :)
- gLeN
______________________________________________________