Re: [tied] IE genitive

I'm not convinced either, although it comes close to the solution I once
advocated (if it is not identical with it). Indeed, if we depart from
lengthened-grade *bhe:r-e'-t, *bhe:r-e-e'nt which will yield exactly
*bhe'r-e-t, *bhe'r-o-nt, this may be quite regular. It would be the
subjunctive of a lengthened-grade variant of the root aorist which once
belonged with Ved. bibharti, Gk. piphranai. It still needs the rule to be
true that stem-final vowels are not deleted even if unaccented but instead
show the voice-governed thematic-vowel alternation. The element must have
survived as something special right through the time of ablaut havoc
without being affected by it. Somehow there must have been something in
its material or in its status that caused that to be the case. If the
thematic vowel is a morpheme of belonging it just may have a status all
its own. Why would it be combined with lengthened grade? Because that is
what this language does with the morpheme of belonging -e/o-; it forms
vrddhi derivatives. So this would be a verbal form modifying another.

However, I used to be more convinced of the correctness of this analysis
as I have been lately, since I have trouble getting it to work with
reduplicated verb forms. Still, since we know very little about the true
essence of any of the elements involved, that may not be fatal to the
analysis. The idea that the subjunctive is originally a vrddhi formation
has apparently caught on. I guess I should be flattered, but more than
that I feel I ought to clean up the act. The last word is yet to be
spoken.

Jens

On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:

> On Thu, 24 Apr 2003 18:29:31 +0200 (CEST), Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen
> <jer@...> wrote:
>
> >Indeed I believe they survived ablaut unimpaired. The loss of unstressed
> >vowels skips stem-finals. They must do that for a reason, but that has not
> >been found.
>
> I've been looking, but haven't found it.
>
> Going back to specifics: except perhaps for the ordering of the rules
> (is there a need why the thematic vowel rule must come _after_ zero
> grade, so pressing that o-stem Gsg. *-osyo has to be explained by
> analogy instead of, as is preferrable, by sound law?), we seem to be
> in agreement about, to quote my earlier message:
>
> Pre-ablaut *perk^-sk^é-t, *perk^-sk^e-ént
> Them.vow. rule *perk^-sk^é-t, *perk^-sk^o-ént
> Zero-grade *prk^sk^é-t, *prk^sk^o-ént
> Initial accent *prk^sk^é-t, *prk^sk^ó-ent
> Zero-grade (2) *prk^sk^é-t, *prk^sk^ó-nt,
>
> Now this is the easy case: the thematic vowel was stressed here ab
> origine, and was never subject to zero grade. The same goes for a
> nominal type such as *mr.tós.
>
> It gets more weird in the *bhér-e-ti, *bhér-o-nt / *h1ék^wos,
> *h1ékwosyo type. There is no escaping the irregularity of the
> thematic vowel there. If the pre-Ablaut form was *bhér-e-t,
> *bher-é-ent the expected outcome would be +bhért(i), +bhrónt(i). If
> we try to escape the premise (unstressed thematic vowels were not
> reduced by zero grade) by hypothesizing that originally _all_ thematic
> vowels were stressed (*bher-é-t, *bher-é-ent [this last form already
> irregular in itself, as we would expect *bher-e-ént]), all we get is
> +bhrét(i), +bhrónt(i). Still no good. Even if we push back thematic
> vrddhi to the very origins of PIE (*bhe:r-é-t, *bhe:r-e-ént),
> resulting in a promising *bhér-e-t(i), *bhér-o-nt(i) after the initial
> accent rule, the second stage of the zero-grade rule would surely have
> reduced that to +bhért(i), *bhéront(i). I suppose this *is* a step in
> the right direction: now only zero-grade(2) needs doctoring to avoid
> reducing unstressed morpheme-final /e/, while we can leave the main
> zero-grade law free of thematic vowel weirdness (even if at the
> expense of a vrddhi rule for some uses of the thematic vowel in
> pre-Ablaut PIE). I'm not totally convinced it's the right solution,
> though.
>
>
> =======================
> Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
> mcv@...
>
>
>
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