Re: [tied] IE *-su and the Nostratic "equational" marker *-n :)

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 07:07:18 GMT, "Glen Gordon"
<glengordon01@...> wrote:

>Piotr:
>>However, *-i does occur with *-su in the thematic declension
>>(*wlkWo->i-su). This suggests that *wlkWoi is the locative proper, while
>>*-su >is a postposition.
>
>Miguel in response:
>>No, -oi- is here a plural (> dual) morpheme, straight from the
>>pronominal declension (and hence found in the o-stems, which are to be
>>interpreted as adjectives/nouns with postpositioned pronoun, much like
>>the later Slavic definite adjectives).
>
>Now why would o-stems have a postpositioned pronoun? While this might be
>phonetically possible, I don't see the grammatical sense of it. I've put
>forth already that thematic stems derive from stuff like *-os
>adjectives/nouns where their genitive ending has been re/mis-interpreted as
>nominative, leaving a new thematic stem in *-o-.

An interesting idea if we turn it around. Genitives are quite often
derived from adjectives. The non-thematic genitive in *-os might well
derive from the o-stem's (adjectival) nom.sg. in *-os. Which leaves
the question: where does gen.pl. *-om come from, from the neuter?

>No need for postpositioned
>pronouns. Misanalysis answers things quite cleanly. Your pronominal
>solution, which is again overly mechanical, leaves us open to even more
>questions like "What would this 'pronominal' ending have conveyed
>originally?", "How did it fit into IE grammar?", "How would it have
>arisen?", "Why postfixed and not prefixed?", etc, etc. which would
>necessitate further theories and speculation.

Definite adjectives are rather commonplace in Indo-European. They
arose (and largely disappeared again) independently in Germanic,
Slavic and possibly other IE groups (Tocharian?). In Slavic, the
definite adjective is formed by postfixing a pronominal element
("article") [opinions differ on whether it's relative *jo- or
anaphoric *i ~ *e]. PIE was SOV, so of course it would have been
postfixed.

>Plus, I was under the impression that the accusative conveyed "definiteness"
>(at least this is so in Uralic where ablative conveys indefinite nouns), so
>in that view, one would wonder how IE would require "definite adjectives"
>for anything. Thoughts?

AFAIK, the accusative does not convey definiteness in IE (i.e. one
cannot omit it for an indefinite object, as one can in e.g. Turkish).

It is interesting, however, that only the o-stem neuters have the
accusative *-m marker, which would make some sense if the o-stems were
indeed originally definite (substantivized) adjectives.

I do believe that all instances of the thematic vowel can be
etymologically connected, and traced back to the "anaphoric" pronoun
*i ~ *e: added to nouns, it made definite adjectives (many later
substantivized, o-stems); infixed into finite (transitive) verbs it
expressed a 3rd. person definite object (fossilized in the thematic
conjugations); added to an ancient verbal noun, it gave a verbal
adjective (which was later extended with personal endings and either
merged with transitive thematic conjugations and/or developed into the
PIE conjunctive).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...