>The distinction between animate and inanimate itself doesn't need to
>be very old in PIE. The only difference morphologically is that
>neuters lack distinctive nominative (*-s) and accusative (*-m) forms,
>as well as a plural (the collective in *-h2/Ablaut is grammatically
>singular).
Beg to differ. Of course the *-s nominative is recent but the
inanimate/animate contrast itself probably reaches very deeply
into prehistory since, on a Nostratic standpoint, we may observe
that even genderless Uralic still has seperate interrogatives for
animate and inanimate. This must be inheirited, in which case,
so to the animate/inanimate contrast.
Granted however, I feel that gender was unmarked in ProtoSteppe
with only grammatical differences to distinguish them (such
as the lack of accusative *-m for inanimates).
- love gLeN
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