On Sun, 08 Apr 2001 23:27:07 , "Glen Gordon"
<
glengordon01@...> wrote:
>1) The "universal case suffix"
>------------------------------
>Define "universal case suffix".
A semantically empty "case" ending added to forms which would
otherwise appear to be synchronically endingless.
>2) Interpretation of *eg^o:
>---------------------------
>While there is no evidence afaik for a thematic verb **eg^(h)e-
>"to be here", another undeniable fact also remains that there is
>no **e as first person singular. The particle *e is known to be
>a locative particle meaning "here"
I'll ask again what you are referring to exactly. Besides the
anaphoric pronoun *(h1)e-/*(h1)i-, there's a deictic element *h1e,
probably identical to it, but it can mean either "here" or "there".
Are you saying that it had exclusively "Ich-deixis"?
>Forms showing a common IE **eg^ are an illusion caused by
>erosion of a commonly used pronoun with a dispensable final
>vowel. Indo-Iranian's *-am ending is found throughout all
>_three_ persons.
And where do you think that originated?
>4) The soundlaw that breaks its own law
>---------------------------------------
>
>>> IE **usweks, *sweks < *sWesWek^s
>>> IE *yus, **us < *sWesW-
>>
>>What I'm saying is that there was a soundlaw *swesw > *usw.
>
>You're saying nonsense. A soundlaw based on two made-up examples that can't
>even explain the ACTUAL IE reconstructions, *yus and *swek^s! There is no
>**us, **usW or **uswek^s in common IE. Idionsyncratic dialectal forms are
>not a substitute for proto-IndoEuropean itself.
Actually, idiosyncratic forms are priceless material for
reconstruction. A form that has no explanation within a regular
paradigm is very likely to be ancient and to reflect facts that have
been regularized away elsewhere. The numeral "six" is a case in
point. Besides *sek^s (Latin, Germanic, Tocharian) and *swek^s
(Celtic, Balto-Slavic, Indo-Iranian), we have Greek *weks (either from
*sweks or *useks), Armenian vec` (can only be from *us(w)ek^s) and the
Baltic (OPrussian) ordinal usts, uschts (*uk^s-tos, *uswV-tos).
Besides, we have the Kartvelian borrowing (Svan usgwa < *uswa),
presumably from Armenian. Since the *u- has no explanation otherwise,
and can hardly have been an idiosyncracy independently developed by
Baltic, Greek and Armenian, it stands to reason that the PIE form was
itself *uswek^s, or something similar. By the soundlaw *swesw > *usw,
this can be derived from *sweswek^s, which immediately gives us a
likely source for the word: Semitic *s^es^s^et, even though the origin
of final *-ek^s remains obscure.
Why it is clear that there did exist a PIE *us "you (pl.)", besides
*yus with euphonic glide, is something that I have already explained.
The acc. plural forms are *us-me, *ns-me. These gave rise to an
"extended form" *wos, *nos, made by inserting *o between the first and
second segments of the normal accusative form. This happened at a
relatively late, *after* the reduction of 1pl. *ms-mé to *ns-mé
(otherwise we would have had *mos instead of *nos). At this late
time, *usmé had no *y- prefix (and thus forms like Germanic *izwis are
secondary), which means that in the nominative form, *y- must be
secondary as well. Again, as in the case of "six", we find here forms
with *u- alternating with *sw- (Welsh chwi, Hittite *suwe:s, Avestan
xs^ma, Greek spho: (du. sph- < *swh3-, etc.). The evidence for this
soundlaw is pretty compelling I would say.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...