Miguel:
>That's the _Lydian_ gen./dat. in -L (cf. also the Hitt. pronominal
>gen. in -el). The extension of the ending to the dative in Lydian is
>secondary. It's an adjectival/genitival suffix.
Right, thanx for the clarification. At any rate, obviously this ending
is being used for a case ending so how can we be sure that this usage
wasn't derived from IE itself. Perhaps there was a case ending in *-ol?
Secondly, we already have a genitive in *-os so if we are to follow
this train of thought, it would be unlikely that *-ol would cover the
same functions. A dative meaning makes sense because we know that this
can also be employed to carry a genitive meaning.
Plus, I'm having fun with a wild idea that perhaps the dative in *-oi that
we see in non-Anatolian languages is somehow from earlier *-ol, fossilized
only in words like *sxal "salt" (normally *sal) or *saxwl "sun". The dative
ending in these words might be used to give a sense of transformation or
causation (eg: *sxal < MIE *sex-ele "that which makes (something) dry" or
literally "into dry").
Just a thought. Have fun with it.
- love gLeN
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