It isn't so much a slip as an
occasional case of my penchant for speculation and internal reconstruction
getting the better of me. I wish I had chosen a different example. Of
course Miguel is right about the available evidence pointing to initial
stress in *népo:t-s, though the following reservations should be
made:
(1) The Germanic word is a secondary nasal
stem and so does not reflect *nepo:t-s directly (though it's reasonable to
assume that the PGmc. substitute remained faithful to the original stress
pattern).
(2) The Old Indo-Aryan declension is
accentually static, with the first syllable stressed across the paradigm
(Germanic shows no Verner variants, so there's no indication of kinetic stress
there either). The Greek form is of course isolated and can't testify to any
form of stress mobility either.
In general, I don't accept the
Beekesian reconstruction of PIE accentuation and its prehistory. In particular,
I doubt the existence of *CéCo:C(s) as a distinct non-static type (though there
are nouns which according to Greek, Germanic or Vedic evidence were
stressed similarly to *népo:ts -- *swéso:r, *ték^so:n, *h2ák^mo:n,
etc.). I regard the accentuation *C(e)Có:C(-s)/*C(e)CC-ós as historically
primary and normal, *CéCo:C(s)/*CéCC-os as secondary and due to the appearance
of lexical accent that enforced stress retraction (presupposing an earlier stage
with no lexical accent and "normal" stress, except in transparent derivatives of
late origin), and *CéCo:C(s)/*CeCóC-m/*CeCC-ós as invented by modern
linguists.
Piotr
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, November 07, 2001 8:41 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] *nepo:t... Somebody's wrong!
Given OI. nápa:t, Grk. népodes and OE (etc.) nefa, that's
surely a slip of the pen on Piotr's part. There are basically two patterns
for the animate non-static nom. sg.: (A) *CéCO:C(s) or (B) *CCé:C(s). *népo:t(s)
belongs to type A.