Re: [tied] IE genitive

On Mon, 21 Apr 2003, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> On Sun, 20 Apr 2003 20:22:23 +0200 (MET DST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
> <jer@...> wrote:
>
> >The rule-of-thumb says "anything capable of ablaut gradation appears in
> >the zero-grade if the thematic vowel precedes".
>
>
> That sounds more reasonable than "the rule that everything following
> the thematic vowel appears in its reduced form", to which I objected.

I don't see any big difference: things can only appear in their reduced
form if they have one. Your explicit objections were clearly directed
against both formulations.

>
> >> I prefer to reconstruct *tosyo (the first /o/ being the thematic
> >> vowel, lengthened to /o/ before the 'ending' -esyo, where the /e/ was
> >> indeed reduced by zero grade: toesyo > tosyo: I'm not sure whether the
> >> accentuation was *tó-esyo or *to-esyó). The athematic pronominal type
> >> would be represented by e.g. *kWesyo (from *kWís, not *kWós) or indeed
> >> *esyo itself (Nom.masc. *is).
> >
> >The descriptive thing is that we do no have a long vowel here, so
> >_something_ has been reduced. I now of no "athematic pronominal type": the
> >"thematic vowel" means "stem-final vowel".
>
> There are clearly two distinct pronominal types, which I call
> "athematic" and "thematic". The "athematic type" goes:
>
> N *is *kWis *k^is
> A *im *kWim *k^im
> "V" *ey *kWey *k^ey
> G *esyo *kWesyo *k^esyo
> D *esmo:i *kWesmo:i *k^esmo:i
> L *esmi *kWesmi *k^esmi
> I *eh1 *kWe1 *k^eh1
> Ab *eot *kWeot *k^eot
>
> What I call the "thematic type" is:
>
> N *yos *kWos *k^os *so (!)
> A *yom *kWom *k^om *tom
> G *yosyo *kWosyo *k^osyo *tosyo
> D *yosmo:i *kWosmo:i *k^osmo:i *tosmo:i
> L *yosmi *kWosmi *k^osmi *tosmi
> I *yo(sm)eh1 *kWo(sm)eh1 *k^o(sm)eh1 *to(sm)eh1
> Ab *yo(sm)ot *kWo(sm)ot *k^o(sm)ot *to(sm)ot
>
> If you have a better name, I'd be glad to hear it.

Without expressing a wish ot be quoted as endorsing each reconstruction, I
will say that in my understanding they are both thematic. The old
interchange -e-/-o- is quite well preserved in pronouns, and I just do not
understand the unwillingness to accept a stem *te- alongside *to-. That
makes a problem out of Goth. gen.sg. this, and certainly also out of a
paradimg like OPruss. stas, stan, sta, gen. stesse, dat. stesmu, just like
German das, des, dem; and Hom.Gk. has gen. teo; and the Tocharian
palatalized forms would be unexplained if there were no front-vowel forms
in the paradigm. The i-forms are rather plainly originally enclitics. For
reasons I do not understand it appears that *kWi-/*kWe- means 'what',
while stable *kWo- means 'who'. I hope this is secondary and will some day
be explained. With the interrogative, therefore, I do accept two types,
although I am not completely sure how they were in detail, but I certainly
would not call any of them athematic, for both have stems ending in a
vowel.

Jens