On Fri, 02 Aug 2002 00:44:33 +0000, "Glen Gordon"
<
glengordon01@...> wrote:
>>8. The Opposition. "Last time [Glen] checked, IndoEuropean tended towards
>>suffixation, not prefixation."
>
>Then where are the prefixes in PIE? There are none. Plus things
>like the question marker *ne placed at the end of the sentence
>and the overwhelming predominance of suffixation suggest an
>originally SOV language.
Nobody is denying that PIE was a predominantly suffixing (SOV)
language. But most if not all suffixing SOV languages do retain a
small number of prefixes. Basque is SOV and suffixing, but the
causative, for instance, is a prefix.
PIE too does have a limited number of prefixes. The augment *h1e- is
directly or indirectly attested in the majority of IE language
families. Reduplication can also be seen as a form of prefixing. The
"mobile s" may have once been a prefix, the meaning of which has been
lost. And there is the "Rasmussen *R-".
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...