Re: [tied] IE genitive

> On Mon, 21 Apr 2003 01:41:01 +0200 (MET DST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
> <jer@...> wrote:
>
>>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.
>
> OK, it's relatively marginal (so is *k^o-, found only in Hittite,
> AFAIK), but I guess I have nothing against a stem *te-. There seems to
> be no trace of an Acc. +tim, however.

No, there seem to be no i-variants of the stem *te-/to-. The enclitic
appears to be *i-. Perhaps this is really so, the lacking **ti- appearing
as *(H1)i-, much as Eng. <that> is <it> when enclitic. But that need
additional work.

>
>>The i-forms are rather plainly originally enclitics.
>
> I see no evidence for that.

The paper of mine on -i- ~ -e-/-o- quoted later in your posting should
help you do that. The relation was described by Benveniste, but, as
always, with the touch of mysticism without which French intellectuals
just can't finish a sentence: In Benveniste's formulation, pronouns have
i-variants in which -i- expresses the function of an enclitic. Now, I'd
say that function is the same as the orthotone form, only the word is used
enclitically. And since there is a sound rule reducing an unaccented
thematic vowel to -i- in very old forms, the enclitic forms with -i- could
be simple phonetic variants of the unreduced forms.

Some basic items are: *im, *id are frequently enclitic (Eng. <it> still
is), as are their sandhi friends OP dim, OPr. din, Av. s^im, him, Gk. mim,
min, which are all just *im in liaison with some preceding word-end. The
facts of the indefinite/interrogative strongly suggest (but, all right, do
not prove to the extent of forcing a hostile and uninhibitedly fanciful
reader to give up every dream of avoiding it) that *kWó- is orthotone and
*kWi- is enclitic: 1. In Latin which distinguishes so many variants, the
indefinite has -i-, as si-quis. 2. In IIr. the enclitics have -i-, as Ved.
kas'-cit 'anybody'. 3. In Greek unaccented forms of ti- are indefinite.
That means to me that the IE indefinite was *kWis, *kWid and enclitic.

>
>>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.
>
> My analysis is different. A pronoun like *kWis, *kWesyo has a stem *kW-
> and "endings" *-is, *-esyo [I quote "endings" because this is plainly
> the pronoun *is, suffixed]. The stem of *kWos, *kWosyo does end in a
> vowel, and the paradigm is virtually identical to that of the nominal
> o-stems. In fact, the structure of these "thematic" forms is in origin
> the same as that of the "athematic" pronominal forms, except for the
> stem-final vowel.
>
> N *kW + *íz -> *kWis
> A *kW + *ím -> *kWim
> G *kW + *ásy(a:) -> *kWesyo
> DL *kW + *á(i) -> *kWé(sm)i
> AbI *kW + *át -> *kWéh1
>
> N *kWá + *iz -> *kWós
> A *kWá + *im -> *kWóm
> G *kWá + *asy(á:) -> *kWósyó
> DL *kWá + *a(i) -> *kWói
> AbI *kWá + *at -> *kWóh1

And what is the presence of the -á part supposed to mean? That is, at the
end of the day, what does *kWis mean that is different from *KWos, and how
can that be expressed in this fashion? If this is not a "system" invented
solely for the purpose of "explaining" this, you must be able to point to
the existence of the same system elsewhere. Where is that?

> This requires a special soundlaw that eliminates vocalic *i after (or
> before) a _stressed_ thematic vowel. Besides the o-stems and
> "thematic" pronouns, the same phenomenon is seen in the reduplicated
> aorist and the ah2-stems.
>
> The reduplicated aorist is the aorist of the causative. If we analyze
> the causative as:
>
> 1) o-grade/lengthened root [*R + root] +
> 2) *(p)éi- +
> 3) thematic vowel +
> 4) endings,

This part is correct (I'm not pronouncing myself on the "(p)" part, though).

>
> the reduplicated aorist has the structure:
>
> 0) lengthened reduplication syllable [*R + redupl.] +
> 1) zero grade / e-grade root +
> 2) *(p)-
> 3) stressed thematic vowel
> 4) endings

This is not correct. The thematic forms must have arisen in the middle
voice, for there are active forms with reflex of o-grade in Vedic. The
ablaut of this category was, then, ó/zero just as in the perfect and in
the intensive.

> The expected *i (zero grade of *(p)éi-) is absent before the stressed
> thematic vowel.
>
> In the ah2-stem feminines, the *i of the athematic feminine suffix *ih2
> is also absorbed by the stressed thematic vowel:
>
> N *-á-ih2 -> *-eh2 -> -a:
> A *-á-ih2-m -> *-eh2m -> -a:m
> V *'-a-ih2 -> *-oi(h2) -> -oi (skt. -e:)
> G *-a-íh2-a:s -> *-o-yáh2-os -> -oya:s ~ -a:s (Skt. -a:ya:s) L
> *-a-íh2-a(i) -> *-o-yáh2-i -> -oya:i ~ -a:i (Skt. -a:ya:i) D
> *-a-ih2-á(i) -> *-o-yh2-ái (-> Arm. -oj^)
> A *-a-íh2-a:t -> *-o-yáh2-ot
> I *-a-yh2-áh1 -> *-o-yh2-áh1 -> -oyyá: ~ -a: (Skt. -aya:, OCS
> -ojoN

We have been over this a number of times. It simply disregards the
majority of the facts, giving undue emphasis to some Indo-Iranian facts
which are easily explained as analogical.

> I now realize that the same rule also explains the peculiar
> alternation *i ~ *e in the pronoun *is. The root was *i, to which the
> nominative and accusative endings were directly appended:
>
> *í-za > *íz > *í&s > *ís
> *í-ma > *ím > *í&m > *ím
>
> The "absolutive" had the ending *-a:
>
> *í-a > *í-(y)a > *íy > *&'y > *éy
>
> (This is the origin of Skt. ay-am)

So ayám is not a nominative? How did it come to be used as the
nom.sg.masc. and only that?

> The oblique endings were based on the absolutive, but there the accent
> fell on the "thematic" *á, causing the loss of *i in the oblique:
>
> G *i-á-si > *ésy + o
> DL *i-á-(?)a > *é + (sm)i
> AI *i-á-ta > *ét > *éh1

What kind of system is this? The only hint of a morphological rule of IE
stating that the strong cases are formed from a curtailed form of the stem
used in the rest of the inflection is the appearance of some unexpected
n's in the inflection of some neuter nouns. I cannot accept this a license
to assign the same status to any other element one would like to leave
functionally unaccounted-for.

> So now I have the "thematic" pronouns, the o-stems, the a:-stems, the
> reduplicated aorist and the *is ~ *esyo alternation neatly regularized
> by a single soundlaw (*i > 0 / {_é= | é=_}, where = is "morpheme
> break"). Additionally, the soundlaw may perhaps explain other cases
> where *i appears to be the "zero grade" of the thematic vowel, as
> discussed by Jens in his 1988 article "Indo-European ablaut -i ~
> -e-/-o-".

This is only "neatly regularized" if the underlying system can be
supported by independent evidence or is in itself so obvious as not to
need that. I think it fails on both counts. And if it is only conjured up
to avoid accepting the obvious where "*i appears to be the "zero grade" of
the thematic vowel", namely that the thematic vowel could once be reduced,
I guess other people of normal temperament would be most offended by
seeing such a massive investment of effort in what can then only be a
negative personal crusade. Being who I am, I express my gratitude instead,
for few theories have been so intensely debated as my ablaut rules, and it
indeed feels gratifying that the opposition is forced to such extremes to
avoid okaying what it's contesting.

Jens