Miguel:
>Eichner, claimimg that laryngeals do not colour a long *e:, derives
>this from *me:h2wr, from the root *meh2- as in Latin ma:turus "ripe",
>ma:ne "early" (IEW "gut, zu guter Zeit, rechtzeitig").
Egad. I'm starting to think that reading is sometimes not healthy for the
mind...
Me, trying to grasp Miguel's confusing collage of theories:
>Now Miguel. You stated: "It is interesting, however, that only the >o-stem
>neuters have the ACCUSATIVE *-m marker." (Capitalization is my >doing)
>Please phrase things more professionally next time. You meant >to say
>NOMINO-accusative
Miguel in return:
>I meant exactly what I said. *-m is the accusative marker. We also
>find it in the thematic neuter nom./acc.
While *-m is without a doubt the IE accusative, we should all be aware by
now that *-m is not the IE _nominative_. One might dangerously presume that
*-m is a NOMINO-accusative ending perhaps... perhaps? At any rate, your
theory is insufficient and does not conform to the realities of the data.
You have not fully contemplated the result of your assertion. How does using
the animate accusative *-m as an inanimate nominative AND accusative make
grammatical sense? Why is this phenomenon only associated with a small
quantity of inanimate nouns while the rest are unmarked in the
nominoaccusative? In what way is the idea that these thematic roots derive
from the genitive plural in *-om, just as many animate thematics would
derive from the genitive singular *-os, inferior to your solution wrought
with problems?
Piotr to Miguel:
>The "null hypothesis" is the most parsimonious one. If morphological
>conditioning accounts for the observed facts, why introduce exotic
> >phonemes praeter necessitatem?
Miguel protests:
>Because we _need_ it in any case to explain the *o in the nom.sg.
>*-os.
An emotional response. This seems to be your personal urgent need but I
doubt that many are so compelled as you to accept this theory when the
evidence existant doesn't validate any of your assertions. There are still
no IE "definite" adjectives to be seen. Your theory must be revised to
conform to the actual data.
Using affixed pronominals to explain the entire wide use of the thematic
vowel across all word categories (verb, noun, "adjective", etc) is without
logical, grammatical or semantic basis. Clearly, its wide use is something
beyond simple "suffixation" of a single morpheme *e. I'll keep my analogical
solution so far, unless this displeases the populus.
>Depends on what one thinks caused the lengthening. I take it you
>don't think it was *-z, przepraszam, *-s?
IE *z from all likelihood never existed except in the minds of imaginative
linguists. I was sure that this debate was over with but... Carpe pridem, I
always say. :P
- gLeN
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