Miguel:
>Allow me to dive deep into the depths of
>pre-Proto-Indo-European:
Miguel, you shouldn't be diving without a helmet... We're not on the same
wavelength at all.
>We'll start with the personal pronouns, [...]
>1. (*mu(:)) obl. *mu� > *m�(:)
>2. *tu(:) obl. *tu�(:)
This part is pretty apparent. I would reconstruct in Early IE (c.7000-6000
BCE):
NOM OBL
1ps *meu *me
2ps *teu *twe
[*e = schwa]
>Rasmussen derives the acc. ending from *-m� (*mu-m� > *mu�;
Don't agree at all. Rather, the oblique forms are simply the unstressed
versions of their full counterparts. There was originally no difference
between nominative and oblique forms in Steppe, precursor to IndoTyrrhenian
(Steppe *mu and *tu). The suffix *-m was not used with these pronouns and to
imagine so simply in order to make a pattern where there is none is fantasy.
>This is confirmed by the plural acc. forms *ns-m� and *(j)us-m�, and I
> >accept it.
Nonsense. The pronoun *yus was probably not the original pronoun for the
2ps. We would have expected Early IE *tec/*tei (*c = /ts/ and derived from
earlier *-t) and it agrees with what's found in the verbal paradigm just as
we find both *wei- and *-wes for 1ps. It also agrees with the closely
related Uralic language.
The pronoun *yus- was probably originally a noun describing the meaning of
"group". This would explain the *-m in the accusative that later seaped
through to the declension of the other plural pronouns. The pronoun *ns-me
is simply the zero-grade of Early IE *mec and therefore related to IE *-mes
in the verb. Nothing too painfully complicated here.
Early IE:
1pp *wei/*wec
2pp *tei/*tec
>For an older stage (before e/o umlaut), I would posit *-m�.
The e/o ablaut is a late phenomenon associated with the change of stress
accent to tonal in Late IE (5000-4000 BCE). The *e/*o alternations are
attributable to a single vowel *e (a schwa) in Mid IE (6000-5000 BCE)
splitting into a front and back variant depending on accent. Before 5500
BCE, a predictable penultimate stress accent was in use.
>These (except the genitive) can now be analyzed as:
>
>nom. *-a:tu > *-asw > *-es (but -k` in Armenian)
> *-a:ti > *-aty > *-oi
This is hardly plausible. I feel the animate nominative to be from Mid IE
only, derived from an attached demonstrative *se "the, this, that". Note
that Etruscan uses /-s/ or /-s'/ in divine names only, implying that at
least the occasional honorific use of the demonstrative as a nominative
existed in IndoTyrrhenian but was by no means terribly vital to the
declensional paradigm. Therefore:
Early IE Mid IE Late IE
7000-6000 6000-5000 5000-4000
Nom Sg (*se) *-se *-s
Nom Pl *-ec *-ec *-es
Acc Sg *-em *-em *-m
Acc Pl *-emec *-emec *-ns
Gen Sg *-ese *-ese *-es/-os
Abl Sg *-eta *-eta *-et/-ot
Note the same pattern of reduction in the accusative plural to *-ns as we
find in the 1pp *ns (from Early IE *mec). Case solved.
>The parallel with Afro-Asiatic is fairly clear:
>
> Sem. A.Eg pPIE
>1. *-ku *-kj *-k
>2. *-ka/*-ta *-tj *-tk
> *-ki/*-ti
>3. *-0 *-j *-0
> *-at *-tj
Sorry, Miguel, you lost me. Have fun, eh. I'll be running away now in fear.
- gLeN
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