>>>As I said, my current theory is that it comes from the diminutive
>>>*-ik-(/*-ih2).
>>
>>There's nothing internal or external to IE to warrant a "diminutive"
>>*-ik-.
>
>Excuse me? The main PIE diminutive is *-(i)ko- (besides the also
>widespread *-(V)lo-).
Ah, yes. I remember. You suspect that final *-k becomes *H2 while
it is preserved initiomedially, similar to my *n>*r change. However,
my *n>*r change helps to unravel the irregularities of the heteroclitic
declension. I don't see how your *k>*H2 law unravels
any mystery plaguing IEists minds at all... or am I wrong?
Secondly, why should a presumedly thematic version of **-ik- (that
is, *-ko-) survive as diminutive while the other (*-H2) end up as
feminine or collective? How does a simple thematic vowel change the
meaning so drastically?? It would require many more contrived tales
to get around this. And yet again, all of this would be for
nothing because this sound change doesn't solve any vexing problem
within reconstructed IE grammar. Your *nem-/*yem-/*em- alchemy also
doesn't solve anything important for IE grammaticists but rather
focuses on the utmost trivialities to support your bizarre views
on Early IE development.
>Greenberg, in "IE and its Closest Relatives", [...]
Of course. The wonderful Greenberg always steals the show and yet is perhaps
the worst of the Nostraticists to rely on...
>Finno-Ugric -k, -ka ~ -k� (dim.); Northern Samoyed -ku
>(dim.); Old Turkish -(a)k (dim.), Karaim -ka (fem.), Gagauz -ika (fem.)
>[Greenberg's example: qoms^u "neighbour", qoms^u-ika >"female neighbour",
>but I wonder if this may not be Slavic >influence]; Mong. -[i]ka(n) ~
>-[i]ke(n) (dim. and fem.) [e.g. noya(n) "prince" ~ noy-ika(n) "princess"];
>Korean -k (dim.); Jap. -ko (suff. of female names); Gilyak -k (fem.);
>Eskimo -ax-aq (dim.).
I would argue that the diminutives here appear to warrant *kW if
one is ever to explain the Altaic *k (Steppe *k > Altaic (*h) as
with the word for "ten") or the non-palatal *k(W) in IE. At any
rate, this hardly proves that *k became *H2 in IE. It only
suggests that IE *-k(W)o- may be related to other *kW forms.
>One may add Basque -ko, -s-ko (dim.)
Since Basque is generally understood to be non-Nostratic,
there's no point adding this fact.
>So what about feminine *-ih2, *-eh2?
Either the message didn't come through yet, or you haven't been reading. The
ending *-ix is a _composite_ ending (*-i-x) and
*-e-x is only a Late IE suffix, a thematic version of *-x. You
will eventually learn one day that not all suffixes of a
particular language derive from an ancestral form. Some suffixes
come late and need not be further explained. What you give are
some examples in IE of late suffixes. If they are thematic
suffixes, chances are they've been contorted or entirely invented
in Late IE.
- gLeN
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