MidIE Rules now online

From: Glen Gordon
Message: 11085
Date: 2001-11-07

I have now put my list of assertions about Mid IE grammar and
phonology online. It's available at:

http://glen_gordon.tripod.com/LANGUAGE/NOSTRATIC/STEPPE/indoeuropean_rules.html

I haven't as yet made an attempt to prove each point. I simply
list my observations on Mid IE for now. Proving each point would
take a lot of time and typing. It'll have to be accomplished piece
by piece when I find time and as I discover more nuances about
IndoEuropean grammar. I have given examples of some of these
rules, however. Both suspected Mid IE forms and their Late IE
counterparts are provided.

I'd appreciate thoughts, concerns, etc... preferably from more
people than just crabby ol' Miguel ;) Afterall, one doesn't
get a balanced view from just one person.


Actually speaking of "new nuances"... I just realized another
one concerning MidIE suffixes. Apparently, the genitive plural
should be reconstructed as *-ane and not *-ne since we have
*xewei-ane (*o:wiom) and not **xewei-ne. Also, it ends up
looking all the more like a familiar IE postposition.

Also, the 3rd person should be *-ene and not **-ane. I had
been confused about *bheront, you see, since this would
appear to derive from MIE *ber-�ne... but I misanalysed this
word improperly. In actuality, it is *ber�-ne. The initial vowel
of the suffix naturally yields to the vowel-final stem *b�re-
and paradigmatic alternation of *e/*a combined with MIE
accentuation yields *ber�-. However, with *?sent (not **?sont),
the correct MIE form should be *es-�ne whereby *-ene does not
lose *e to a consonant-final *es-, obviously.

Lastly, I'm starting to consider that MIE already had at
least THREE distinct declensional paradigms. For lack of better
terminology, we may call them: vowel-final (*kewane/*kewen�-se),
consonant-final (*pat/*pet:-�-se) and glide-final
(*pekeu/*pek�u-se). The difference is that I now distinguish
between stems ending in *-i or *-u, which decline with a genitive
in *-se, and the "consonant-final" stems (ending in any other
consonant) that decline the genitive with an intervening thematic
vowel...

Hence *pet:-�-se (*ped-�s) and *wet:en-�-se (*wedn-�s). Problem
resolved.

Mea culpa. You live you learn. Thanx for your patience, folks.
I'm consonantly thinking... Sometimes I don't sleep ;)

- love gLeN


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