Re: [tied] Depth, det, etc.

----- Original Message -----

From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 2:58 PM

Subject: Re: [tied] Depth, det, etc.

[Jens:] > I think you're winding back the clock here. There is cross-branch agreement in IE that s-stems are used to form nouns denoting the state described by an adjective, as Gk. kûdos : kudrós, thársos/thérsos : thrasús, or Skt. ójas- : ugrá-, ám.has- : am.hú-. In this procedure the adj.-forming suffixes are not retained in the s-stems, and so - I say - they would not be expected to be present in their further derivatives either. That adj.-forming suffixes keep entering derivatives made from adjectives is only to be expected of the subsequent language development. Incidentally, tempest:as is not based on an s-stem adj., but rather reveals a living pragmatic association between the s-stem and the substantivized *-etaH2 formation that ended up meaning the same.

 

 

I don't question the possibility of those developments. I only propose that the analysis of *-tah2(-t)- as quite independent ot the *-es-/*-eto- system is also defensible and perhaps heuristically productive. There is a whole family of feminine abstracts referring to actions, states or features, derived from verbs or adjectives (sporadically also nouns), involving *-t- (*-t-, *-tah2-, *-ti-, *-tu-, *-twah2-, to list but a few), and not obviously associated with any *-es-stems. Why shouldn't they belong together? Cf. Lat. iuven-ta:t- (also iuven-ta-, iuven-tu:t-), Goth. junda (and WGmc. *jugunþ-).

 

Piotr