>The genitive of aH2-stems is not unproblematic. One expects the
>gen.sg. to end in *-aH2- + the zero-grade of the gen. morpheme /-os/, i.e.
>*-s. But Greek and Lithuanian agree on a circumflex
>long vowel, [...]
By saying "one", of whom does one speak? Is this an indirect way
of saying "_I_ expect"? I don't see why one should expect this at
all. From what I understand so far, the feminine *-ax is a very
late innovation ultimately stemming from the neuter collective
in *-x.
It started in the Late IE period, where the inanimate collective
*-x was extended to *-&x. Other suffixes have been "thematized"
in this manner in this period to convert an inanimate suffix to
an animate one.
Thus was born the "human collective" suffix marking nouns which
naturally described a group of people. Abstract words like
"fatherhood" or "farmer" would employ such a suffix. Evidently,
because of the vocalism, it was created before the beginnings
of schwa lengthening before voiced segments which would later
produce thematic qualitative ablaut (eg: *bHer-e-ti/*bHer-o-mes).
Now, understanding this, the genitive endings as they were when
this suffix was created would have been accented athematic *-as,
unaccented thematic *-&-sy&, and finally the assyllabic *-s for
stems ending in *i or *u.
The expected genitive form is indeed as we find, *-ax-os (which
in eLIE would be *-&x-as, accented on the last syllable).
Afterall, such "feminine" stems did not end in a semivowel. They
also did not terminate in a thematic vowel. They belonged with
the athematic animate nouns such as *po:ts "foot" with gen.
*pedos (eLIE *pa:ts/*pedas).
I hope that all makes sense since I've been up for more than a day
now.
- gLeN
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