Well, some brand-new IE cases make their
debut here, including the allative based (only?) on a very conjectural
interpretation of the Hittite "directive", and a separate form of Abl.pl.
(Hittite is the only language with a Dat./Abl.pl. contrast). I'd like to
see some justification for Dat.pl. *-oi-os as different from Instr.pl.
*-o:is. The Dat./Instr. forms are based on very meagre evidence (with a
Indo-Iranian centre of gravity); they don't match too well between
different branches, and could well be analysed differently. I agree that
*-s was used as a pluraliser in Acc., Dat. and Instr. forms, but the facts are
messier than you make them look in your all-encompassing
symmetries.
Apart from all that, the Loc.pl. *-si/*-su
occurs only in the eastern branches of IE (Indo-Iranian, Balto-Slavic
and Greek), and we have real agreement only between Indo-Iranian and
Slavic. Of course we need something to fill the gaps in our tables of PIE
declensions, but to claim that these forms are really PIE is more than the
comparative method entitles us to. We get away with it only because the native
speakers of PIE can't protest.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 22, 2000 1:42 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] IE *-su and the Nostratic "equational" marker
*-n :)
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).