Re: [tied] Scythian tribal names

It's quite likely that Ossetic (and Yaghnobi) oblique <-i-> developed through the falling together and generalisation of several Old Iranian case endings containing *-aya(:) > *-ya- > -i-.

Piotr

----- Original Message -----
From: liberty@...

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Sunday, November 25, 2001 11:36 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Scythian tribal names

> [George:] I'm interested in the use of this linkage particle "I" (of) which is apparently identical in Iranic and Turkic.

... The '-i' in Ossetic is an agglutinating case particle and follows the noun or string of nouns in the genitive. When you write of an Iranian "linkage particle" are you basing this on the similarity in form and function of the Ossetic genit. marker and the Persian particle '-e', called "ezafe"? I've always thought that this was just a coincidental similarity, though I personally don't know enough about it to say for sure. In any case the word order differs in Ossetic and Persian. "Ahmed's horse, the horse of Ahmed" is 'Asb-e Ahmad' in Farsi, but 'Axmæt-i æfs' in Digor. The ezafe also joins a noun to its adjective or appositive as in 'Asb-e seya:h', "The black horse" and 'Ahmad-e najja:r', "Ahmed the carpenter". Ossetic's '-i' particle doesn't share these last two functions. I can't tell you anything about the Turkish. I hope that this helps (and is accurate this time! ;-)