(no subject)

From: Piotr Gasiorowski
Message: 4745
Date: 2000-11-15

Miguel wrote:
 
>I wouldn't say "*-h3 in thematic nouns, *-h1 in athematics". 
Thematic
neuters have *-oi (*-o-ih1 ?), m./f. i- and u-stems may just as easily
have had *-ih3/*-uh3.  It looks more like "*-h3 for animate nouns,
*-h1 for inanimates".
 
My question remains the same: Why posit both *-h1 and *-h3 if *-h1 alone does the job? If inanimates originally differed from animates, they did so by having *-i-h1 across the board (I don't wish to speculate whether this final *-h1 in neuters is of analogic origin). In consonantal masculine stems *-e (< *-h1e) is supported not only by Greek and Baltic, but Celtic as well (OIr ríg '2 kings' < *re:ge), which is why I prefer to reconstruct *-h1e (with vowel dropped postvocalically) for the dual in general.

>In any case, what's the
diagnosis for reconstructing *-es AND *-oi AND
*-h2 with the same function in the plural?
 
The same function? As you doubtless know, inanimates had no real plural, *-(a)h2 being a collective formation (not restricted to inanimates, by the way). ALL animate noun classes had plurals in *-es in PIE; *-oi is of pronominal origin. Pronouns constitute a restricted lexical class with plenty of idiosyncratic features; their morphology is basically non-nominal even if some convergence has occurred in various branches.
 
Piotr