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

On Sat, 18 Nov 2000 11:56:38 +0100, "Piotr Gasiorowski"
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>>> [Piotr:] Greek *-si is clearly secondary, formed as if to gratify your insistence that the Loc.pl. "should also have *-i". Its late origin and analogical spread squares well with its untypical occurrence after vowels and sonorants in the Dat./Loc.pl. of most declensions. Cf. the spread of Lithuanian locatives in -e (pl. -s-e) < *-en.
>
>> [Miguel:] Are there Greek forms with -su?
>
>No, the poor devils were completely replaced by an aggressively spreading productive innovation. To return the question, are there any non-Greek forms with *-si or *-swi?

No, but since only Sanskrit, Avestan and OCS have *-su, and for the
rest we have 1 vote for *-si (Greek), 3 votes undecided (*-s(V) :
Lith., Hitt., Arm.) and 4 votes unclear (Toch., Alb., Lat., Goth.), I
demand a manual recount...

Anyway, I thought you were referring to analogical spread *within
Greek*. The occurrence in Greek of -si after vowels and sonorants is
irrelevant to the question about which vowel followed the sibilant.

>>> [Piotr:] As the locative of *-i/*-u stems (and often of consonantal stems) is endingless, the Loc.pl. in *-su could be analysed -- rather conjecturally, I admit -- as a zero-ending locative plus *-su.
>
>> [Miguel:] If *-i really had been the locative ending, we would have had *-is, not *-su. Agglutination *works*...
>
>Not if plurality was implied by *-su (as it is by "among" or "between") and if the locative ending was not specifically singular.

But I believe it is quite clear that plurality, in agglutinative
fashion, is indicated by *-s (or rather, I would maintain, *-sw):

<non-o> <o-stems>
acc.pl. = acc.sg. (*-m) + *-s -> *-ns *-ns *-o-ns

dat.pl. = all.sg. (*-o) + *-s -> *-os *-bhi-os *-oi-os
abl.pl. = abl.sg. (*-od) + *-s -> *-os ,, ,,
ins.pl. = ins.sg. (*-h1) + *-s -> *-h1s *-bhi-:s *-oi-:s
loc.pl. = loc.sg. (*-0) + *-s + *-i -> *-si/*-su *-su *-oi-su

I think this works quite nicely (never mind if it was *-s or *-sw).
Additionally, it tells us that the *-i of the loc. and dat. sg. is not
part of the ending, but an additional deictic element, which is
interesting (and confirmed by the endingless locatives and the Hitt.
allative in -a).


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