From: morten thoresen
Message: 5330
Date: 2001-01-05
----- Original Message -----
From: "Glen Gordon" glengordon01@...
To: cybalist@egroups.com
Sent: Thursday, January 04, 2001 10:07 PM
Subject: Re: [tied] Etruscan genitives
>
> Piotr:
> >How would you explain the complementary distribution of
s- and
> > >l-genitives? The ending <-al> occurs after -s, -th and
with feminine
> > >nouns in <-i>; <-(V)s> is found elsewhere:
>
> Yes, I'm aware. This is why I mentioned that it's probably
an IndoTyr.
> thing, if not an Etruscan thing. You see, the *l- and *s-
genitives are
> obviously in no way connected with each other
phonetically, although they
> may be given a complementary distribution later on. There
is no way to
> explain the two genitives as deriving from a common
source, period. They
> must have had a slightly different meaning in earlier
times for both to have
> survived as they do in Etruscan. I see no other origin for
these genitives.
>
> So what differences might they have had? I model the
differences on Finnish
> declension where we find internal and external nuances in
various case
> endings (coincidentally using *-s- for internal and *-l-
for external
> relationships in combination with the Uralic endings *-ta
and *-na). I see
> another "complementary distribution" phenomenon happening
with Hittite
> /-weni/ and /-meni/ which must have also been slightly
different in meaning
> originally.
>