Re: [tied] Morphology (3/20)

On Sat, 24 Aug 2002 02:41:45 +0000, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>>*-men is not a problem,
>
>It's a problem when 2pp *-ten doesn't become **-ter.

But it did. How do you explain Toch. B 2pl. -cer?

>It's a problem when the non-indicative 3pp *-ont
>doesn't become **-or or **-ort.

That is indeed a problem.

>It's a problem when
>heteroclitic stems show *-r in the nominoaccusative
>and *-n- (not **-nt-) in the weak cases.

Greek has generalized -nt- in the weak cases.

>>In the neuter nouns, all **n-stems become heteroclitic
>>(-r / -n-), except those in *-m(e)n.
>
>This is because these nouns all ended with the same
>suffix *-r (*-en in Mid IE). The *-n here was final.
>Not so in roots like *kwon- (MIE *kewane). The lack
>or presence of a final vowel is confirmed by the
>simple rule of penultimate accentuation that once
>operated in IE. Lo and behold, the accentuation
>between these heteroclitic stems and those of
>*n-terminating stems like *kwon- are different.

The n-stems follow all the normal accentuation patterns of PIE. We have
proterodynamic n-stems (*h2ák-mo:n, *h2k-ménos), hysterodynamic n-stems
(*poHi-mé:n, *poHi-mnés), static n-stems (*h1nóh3-mn, *h1nóh3-mn(o)s) and
collective n-stems (*k^wó:n, *k^wéns). The suffix in the first three cases
above is the same suffix *-men: sometimes the root was accented (PD), sometimes
the suffix (HD), and sometimes the accent was retracted because of an original
long vowel in the root (ST). It's clearly absurd to claim that there is an
etymogical difference between the suffix *-men (and all the others) in the HD
stems and the same suffix in the PD stems. Non-neuters do not have final *-r <
**-n, because the suffix was never final (nom. *-s (**-z) and acc. *-m were
suffixed to it, the voc. was analogically reshaped after the nom., especially
after the loss of *-s). Neuters in **-n, **-nt, **-ng(W) and collectives in
**-rk did undergo the sound change, which is why the non-oblique ends in *-r
(*-rt, *-rk, *-rh2).

>>The preceding nasal /m/ prevented the development -n > -r.
>
>Only *-mn avoids rhoticization. Since *m and *n are
>seperated by a non-nasal vowel in *-men, *m can't
>possibly prevent *n from becoming *r unless we come
>up with a bizarre explanation.

There's nothing bizarre about it, just plain phonetics. In a sequence /men/,
the /e/ is practically guaranteed to be nasalized (phonethically [me~n]).

>>The ending *-mos is what underlies Slavic -mU, Latin -mus and Old Irish -m
>>(with neutral quality).
>>*-mes(i) is found in Tocharian A -mäs and Greek -mes.
>
>But... haven't we already discussed the alternation
>of *e and *o in cases like these? It appears to be
>the result of lengthened schwa caused by sonorants in
>the exact same way as the lengthening seen in English
>/mug/ versus /muck/.

Well, except that /g/ is not a sonorant.

>Lengthened schwa evolved into
>*o while plain schwa became *e. Thus *ekwesyo and not
>**ekwosyo from early Late IE *ekw&sy&.

We have Greek hipp-oio, Faliscan -osio, Armenian -oy, all from *-osyo. Where is
*ek^wesyo?

>So, if this is so, we should obtain *-mes (as we find)
>because *-s is not a sonorant. Thus *-mos is caused by
>newer processes, whether analogical or phonological.

The only vowel that is influenced by the voicing of the next segment is the
thematic vowel. The vowel in *-mes is not the thematic vowel, so whether *-s is
a sonorant or not is irrelevant (the 3pl. ends in *-er, and that's a sonorant,
and what about acc. sg. *p&2térm., etc. etc.?).

The /o/ in *-mos is indeed caused by a phonological process, namely Umlaut of
*/e/ after labialized */mW/.

>>>The athematic root aorists like *dox-t "gives"
>>
>>"gave"?
>
>As far as I'm aware, *doxt isn't marked for any tense.
>What's your point? "Gives" or "gave", in IE, it's all
>the same in the aorist.

The aorist is essentially a past tense in the indicative, so a form like *doh3-t
is properly translated as "he gave". Being a perfective, the aorist could also
develop into a future (provided with presentic endings: *doh3-ti "he'll give").
One thing it never means is "gives".

>>The problem is that there is no difference in
>>accentuation between the forms of the present ~
>>imperfect and the aorist in the basic athematic paradigm.
>
>But I just said that! The endings of the athematic
>duratives like *es-t "was" versus athematic aorists
>like *dox-t were always the same (MIE *-em, *-es, *-e).
>They are indistinguishable in form.
>
>_Thematic_ aorists however are caused by special
>aorist endings (MIE *-eme, *-ese, *-ehe, etc) and
>end up carrying accent on the thematic vowel in Late
>IE as a result of penultimate accentuation on
>originally disyllabic suffixes.

So let me get this straight. In order to explain the accentual pattern of the
thematic aorist, you invent a special set of "aorist endings", except that most
aorists never took them, only the thematic ones. Considering that the same
accentual pattern is exhibited by a large number of non-aorists
(tudáti-presents, sk-presents, some of the ye-presents, etc.), this simply makes
no sense.

>>We have a difference of accentuation in the thematic
>>forms, where the aorist stresses the thematic vowel,
>>while the present and imperfect generally do not,
>>but (as I said), this is not something which is
>>exclusive to the aorist. In particular, the durative
>>suffixes in the present/imperfect tense show the same
>>pattern (-sk-é-). The difference in accentuation can
>>therefore not be attributed to an aoristic suffix **-e.
>
>The thematic vowel *-e- was once applied as the default
>in the durative aspect when the verb lacked any modal
>endings (eg: *bher-e-ti). Thematic verbs containing
>modal endings are a late innovation originating from
>the Late IE period only. This is confirmed by forms
>like *bher-s-t showing how a modal suffix is used
>to "replace" a thematic vowel which we would normally
>find in the default durative present *bher-e-ti.

You've lost me there. What is *bher-s-t?

>>[...]is in clear violation of the facts, which are
>>that thematic paradigms always have columnar accent
>>(either '-o-m ~ '-o-mes, or -ó-m / -ó-mes).
>
>In case you haven't noticed, the accentuation of all
>thematic stems, both verbs and nouns from *bher-e-
>to *ekwo-, have been neutralized to the initial
>syllable thanks to acrostatic regularization occuring
>in early Late IE. I don't expect them to conform to
>the original accent since it's clear to anyone who
>notices this simple pattern that their accentuation
>cannot be ancient.

You claimed the paradigm of the thematic present was:

(A) *'-e-m *-é-mes
*'-e-s *-é-te
*'-e *-éne

What is actually attested is:

(B) *[é]-o: *[é]-omes
*[é]-es *[é]-ete(s)
*[é]-et *[é]-ont

How do we get from one to the other? Is it by regular soundlaws? No, because
that would have resulted (correct me if I get your soundlaws wrong) in:

(C) *[é]-m-i *[0]-óms-i
*[é]-s-i *[0]-ét-i
*[é]-(t)-i *[0]-ón(t)-i

So, if it wasn't soundlaws, it must be analogy. But the only source for
analogy, the athematic verbs, go like:

(D) *[é]-mi *[0]-més
*[é]-si *[0]-tés
*[é]-ti *[0]-énti

Therefore, there is no basis for the paradigm under (A).


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...