Re: [tied] The phonetic value of PIE *h3 and the 'drink' root.

On Mon, 22 Jul 2002, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> On Mon, 22 Jul 2002 00:11:13 +0200 (MET DST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
> <jer@...> wrote:
>
> >On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
> >
> >> The fact remains that -oj^ is *only* found in former feminines (or
> >> words secondarily attracted to a feminine declension, such as neuter
> >> io-stems), which is hard to explain what we're dealing with is a
> >> suffix *-dhi.
> >
> >In the wo/ea-inflection, -oj^ is not a "general oblique", but locative
> >only. The genitive has -woy and is thus an o-stem. I refuse to see that
> >as a sign of old feminine gender.
>
> I don't think it's fully justified to claim that the ea-stems are
> "wo-stem[s] in the sg. vs. ea-stem[s] in the pl." (p. 113 of Birgit's
> excellent book).  The nom. in -i may be either *-io or *-ia:, the Ins.
> [based on the Nom.] (-eaw) is clearly *-ia:, and for the Loc. and Abl.
> I have now suggested a link with feminine forms in Sanskrit and/or
> Slavic.  That leaves only the genitive/dative -woy as an intrusion
> from the wo-stems (*io-stems).  And even that may be interpreted as
> coming from the a:-stems, if the development was *-oya:s > -oy. As you
> can see, I'm still torn between the two possibilities...  This would
> make the Loc. in -(w)oj^ again from *-oyh2- > *-oyy-, and akin to the
> Slavic/Sankrit instrumental in -ojoN, -aya:.

The instrumental morpheme *-bhi is certainly founded on the plural *-bhis,
so -eaw looks *very much* as a formation based on instr.pl. -eawk'. That
strips -eaw of its probative power without force and leaves -o- visible in
the singular only, and -a- visible in the plural (with its accessory)
only. And that makes it *very* likely that the -o- of the loc.sg. -oj^ is
a stem-forming *-o- and nothing else. I completely fail to see the wisdom
in taking the instrumental in -eaw to be based on the nominative. Is that
ever done in this language?

>
> Let's see if I can get my story straight.  A Sanskrit-type paradigm
> like
>
> G.  *-oyéh2os > *-oyá:s
> DL. *-oyéh2i  > *-oyá:i
> I.  *-oyh2éh1 > *-oyyá:
>
> (besides non-Sanskrit shortened *-oa:s, *-oa:i > *-a:s, *-a:i), would
> have yielded two forms in pre-Armenian:
>
> GDL. -oy
> I.   -oj^
>
> The first one (identical to o-stem -oy < *-osyo) was only selected in
> the ea-stems (due to the presence in their ranks of old neuters in
> *-yom, *-yosyo).  The second one became a "general oblique" in the
> irregular (and short) feminine nouns kin "woman" and mi "one" and a
> Locative (-> Ablative) in the ea-stems (cf. e.g. Ins. > Dat. in Gothic
> a-stems [o-stems]).  As for the regular a:-stems, they presumably had
> chosen the short forms of the feminine oblique (*-a:s, *-a:i), which
> unfortunately subsequently eroded away, necessitating the adoption of
> a new oblique, based on the *ih2-stems, e.g. G. *-ih2as > *-i(y)as >
> -i.

I am seriously challenged if I am to see a form in -oj^ which, for all the
versatility you would like to ascribe to it, is nowhere an instrumental,
as evidence for how the specific form of the IE instrumental was. Is there
an easy way to get "pre-Armenian [...] I. -oj^" to give up its
instrumental function? I notice that you are not suggesting widening of
the function of the instrumental (as in Gothic, where the functions of the
old instrumental are also carried by the socalled dative), but a complete
displacement of the instrumental form to serve some other case functions
and only those. I find that most unsatisfactory.

I regard the correspondence between Skt. -aya: and OCS -ojoN as the joint
reflex of what would be *-aya: in Brugmannian terms (the BSl. nasal is
secondary, from rudimentary *-mi from the other stam classes). If the
instr.sg. was always end-stressed in mobile paradigms, i.e. ended in
full-grade -VH1 even in PD words, the devi: type would have *-iH2-VH1.
Now, if that ending were to influence the old form in *-aH2-H1 (which
survives as a variant in Vedic and elsewhere), how could it produce a form
in *-aya: ? I'd say it could do just that by adding *-iH2VH1 after the
*-a- of the old form, so that the new ending replaced *-H2H1. That would
produce *-ayH2VH1, which, in case the -V- is -e-, would give PIE
*-ayH2aH1; and, if the -V- is -o-, as I have been inclined to assume, the
rsult would be PIE *-ayH2oH1. Both forms would produce IIr. -aya: and,
with added nasal, OCS -ojoN. The process appears to have started in the
pronouns.

Jens