Re: [tied] Qualitative ablaut - case is still closed

On Fri, 01 Dec 2000 11:04:45 , "Glen Gordon"
<glengordon01@...> wrote:

>
>> >It isn't lost finally following a consonant? Examples?
>>
>>Any n.pl. in *-@2 (Skt. -i, elswhere, including Hitt., -a).
>
>Examples?

Lat. <nomina>. Sigh.

>Now, let's see... First we have Hittite /nekuz/ which looks like *nekWt- to
>me, rather than *nokWt- in postAnatolian languages. Could *nokWt- simply be
>a later o-grade variant?

Or <nekuz> could be analogical after oblique forms with *e (N.
*nókwts, G. *nekwtós; like N. *wódr, G. *wednós).

>As for *po:t (your *po:ds), it appears to be an ancient root noun. Whether
>you like to reconstruct it with a nominative *-s or not, it has no bearing
>on the length of the vowel which predates the nominative (acc. *po:dm).

No, the acc. is *podm (*pedm), with short *o (*e). There's lengthened
grade only in the nominative (*po:ds/*pe:ds).

>No compensatory length happenin' here. But wait! How to account for the *o:? Oh
>my, it would almost seem that I've gone up the creek... but lo! I arise from
>the ashes! Apparently, it comes from MidIE *pa:t:- (from a hypothetical verb
>**pat:-). Stressed *a, closed unstressed *a or *a: become labialized in Late
>IE to *o.

I see nothing about tonal accent here, and I see *a: > *o, as was my
suggestion, so I would have to guess you're saying I'm right?

>Going now to *wódr, it would also appear to be derived from an *-a- stem.
>This is surely an old word too. In Early IE it would be *wát:an in the
>nominative (gen. *wet:anése) with an archaic inanimate *-an suffix that
>appears elsewhere, like Early IE *kWetw-an "four". The "plural" of *wát:an
>would have been *wet:án-xe (later *wedó:r). Note the ancient *a/*e
>alternation due to penultimate accent differences? Nifty huh? Anyways, yet
>again *a becomes *o. No biggy.

Indeed not. This is what I claimed to begin with: *wódr < **wa:dn,
*wednós < **wa:dn-á:s.

But whatever happened to *o < unstressed *e?

>Check out the singular non-stative endings:
>
> *-em
> *-es
> *-et
>
>Now, check out the singular stative endings:
>
> *-xa
> *-ta (or *-txa if you must)
> *-a (later, becoming *-e)
>
>Notice a pattern? Non-stative endings all contain schwa *e whilst the
>stative endings persist with *a.

The pattern is wholly illusory. The "stative" has *a because of the
colouring by *h2. The endings are, quite regularly:

*-h2-e
*-th2-e
*-0-e

The *-e was not affected by zero-grade, even though it's unstressed,
which must mean it's the thematic vowel. In the "active" thematic
conjugation, the thematic vowel comes _before_ the personal endings:

*-o-m
*-e-s
*-e-(t)

It's not unusual for languages that have a perfective/imperfective
(active/stative, etc.) contrast in the verb to show different
constituent orders in the endings (e.g. Semitic with impf. prefix, pf.
postfix conjugation, Basque with ergative subject postfixed, but
prefixed in the past tense, etc.).


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