Miguel ponders:
>Good question. The difference in _meaning_ between the i/e and
>the o forms of the pronouns in PIE is not very clear.
First, it's assumptive, and linguistically bizarre, to assert that
*kWi- is a combination of **kW- + *i-. At best, it is a possibility
but hardly something we should put faith in.
Second, it seems to me that what we are seeing with *kWos versus
*kWis is a declensional system formed from both the stressed and
unstressed forms of yore and the reason why we don't see a stem
**ti- beside *to-/*te- is far too obvious -- There was never **ti!
In Mid IE, "that" was originally *ta when accented and *t& when
unaccented. Likewise, *kWi "who, what" was kW& when enclitic. The
unaccented forms were used when qualifying nouns (ie: "What person?"
or "this thing") as opposed to when on their own (ie: "What?" or
"this"). There was no big difference in meaning, but rather in
synctactic usage.
In early Late IE, the unstressed forms were _also_ given
declensional forms causing confusion for both the native IE speaker
as well as the later IEist. So we see nominative *kW&:s alongside
*kWis by mid Late IE. The proof of what I'm saying can be seen in
stems like *kWotero- where the originally unstressed form is
being used to qualify the following noun, not *kWi-.
Miguel to Jens:
>I have no idea what you're talking about.
At least we can all agree here cuz I have no clue what Miguel
is talking about and Jens has a right to object to those useless
*-a-'s. I'm afraid your preIE reconstruction as it stands is
suspect to unnecessary assumption.
- gLeN
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