I will have to forego commenting directly to your quotes and to try to
condense my rebuttal into something to-the-point. I found myself just
dismissing half of the post because it contained no valuable rebuttals,
just rhetoric and opposition for opposition's sake. I am categorizing
my rebuttal into clear issues.
METHODOLOGY
-----------
First of all, we seem to have a problem with my good buddy "Ockey". When you
protest, "I do not accept that it can be known that there was only one
source
of the thematic vowel," you're obviously missing the whole point about
comparative linguistics because we must take the _simplest_ theory (ie: that
there is ONE source) before we dare consider graduating to something more
complex. We cannot "know" anything in comparative linguistics, so we must
accept the most economical theory, even if our imagination shows us fun
alternative hypotheses. And I can see that you have much imagination.
This is how I always operate: If I reject something, it is because I fail
to see how it is efficient enough to bother considering. I must refuse to be
dragged into endless what-if scenarios with you that multiply hypotheses
simply for the sake of finding an alternative hypothesis no matter how
absurd.
That's not constructive reasoning and a waste of time. I don't deny there
are
more absurd hypotheses than mine, but I question whether there are more
efficient ones.
You say that you "believe" that thematic vowels "survived ablaut
unimpaired",
despite the fact that doing so automatically forces us to unnecessarily
assume
how it might of survived, necessitating further assumptions. Yet while "they
must do that for a reason", as you say, "that has not been found". So added
to
your blatantly inefficient hypothesis you strangely undermine it yourself
anyways. I don't see ordered thought in this respect and I think Ockham
would
spank you.
THE NOMINAL THEMATIC VOWEL (AS OPPOSED TO THE VERBAL ONE)
---------------------------------------------------------
You probably encounter "very grave difficulties" with my theory that nominal
thematic vowels originate from genitival constructs more because you have
failed to fully understand it. I notice a long list of misunderstandings on
your part and these misunderstandings are frustrating for me and this
debate.
This is the immediate source of your grave difficulties.
The thematic vowel *& is not the same vowel as in the genitive singular *-as
since the accented genitive singular regularly becomes *-os WITHOUT *e/*o
ablaut alternations. Secondly, there is no "ablaut" per se of genitive *-os
to *-s. Rather *-os and *-s represent two paradigmatic variants that arose
from the moment of syncope in Mid IE. Stems originally in accented *-as
first retracted their accent to the initial in the nominative (BEFORE
Acrostatic Regularization took place) resulting in *-&s, not *-s, because
the latter would result in a twisted paradigm (eg: nom **CVC-s but gen
**CVCe-s !!?). So instead we see *CVC&-s with gen. *CVCe-s before Acrostatic
Regularization served to repair these stems containing two possible
accentuations by imposing a single non-alternating accent on the stem.
_That_ is my position.
The genitive is SUPPOSED to show thematic *e since *s is unvoiced and
could not have lengthened *&. In fact, it's the nominative that's unexpected
but it's clear that the strange lengthening of schwa (> *o) here mimicks the
nominative lengthening seen in athematic stems that was in turn caused by
the
compensatory lengthening after Clipping (*-s& > *-s + comp.length of
previous
vowel). This same lengthening is also seen in the sigmatic aorist.
Please understand that the nominal thematic vowel has nothing to do with
the verbal thematic vowel other than the same use of *&, so verbal
thematic vowels are not caused by genitival constructs! As if the above
confusions aren't bad enough, you are also confusing schwas of different
stages, confusing MIE and eLIE *& together as if they were interchangeable
entities -- MIE *p&t:as& becomes eLIE *pet:as with the unstressed stem now
containing *e, **never** schwa. MIE *& is mostly eradicated except in
special
circumstances that I've already specified and often shifted to *e.
THE "ALTERNATE POSSIBILITY" (BEAM ME UP, SCOTTY)
------------------------------------------------
The alternate possibility of the thematic vowel being derived from a third
person possessive with "Gruppenflexion-like" collocation of an uninflected
agent noun followed by a possessive is just ludicrous and by far inefficient
for the obvious fact of having to assume truth to three(!) baseless ideas
instead of one.
I must reiterate that thematic vowels do not show any particular function
or meaning because its usage is too varied and widespread. Their morphemic
status, in other words, is left to be proven by you. Your idea of all
derivatives using thematic vowels as being "modifiers" of sorts is rejected
because it doesn't make immediate sense. It is more logical to just _not_
attribute meaning to something that doesn't have morphemic function anyways!
Tell me why I must assume that the thematic vowel is a **seperate** entity
and **does** have a function!
Also, I don't see how *-ro- and *-to- have a thematic vowel and why this
has been mentioned here.
REGARDING *-ske- AND ITS NEWNESS
--------------------------------
As I said, what disqualifies *-ske- as ancient is the unusual accentuation
and the unusual non-CVC syllabic shape for an accented morpheme. Further,
it seems safe to say that the suffix is comprised of the aorist *-s- and
intensive *-g-, so it probably _was_ originally an aorist. The aorist was
_not_ the past tense -- It merely could have a past nuance if anything. If I
understand right, the aorist marked a momentaneous non-punctual action (an
action with a beginning and end that was not abruptly executed). Repetitive
actions, which were marked with *-ske-, would have been momentaneous and
non-punctual. This then explains the aorist-like accentuation for *-ske-.
Now, is the accent truely on *-ye- though? Do we find *?no:mn-ye- 'to name'
with accented *-ye-?
THE SOURCE OF THEMATIC QUALITATIVE ABLAUT
-----------------------------------------
While I see clear examples of lengthening before voiced segments in
English, you prefer to use a smoke-and-mirrors theory by Hirt using the
ol' magical F2 to cover up the lack of real-world examples for this
phenomenon. Logically, I must side with lengthening as the preferred
hypothesis because this is a trivial phenomenon.
ON MY ORDERED NAMING OF LANGUAGE CHANGES FOR PRE-IE
---------------------------------------------------
Your protest against my "crude" naming of stages goes unheard. I need to
give names to these language changes so that I don't need to constantly
explain the changes over and over every time I invoke them. Imagine
having to explain Grimm's Law each and every time we needed to use it to
explain something in Germanic! Forget it, Jens. It suffices to say "Grimm's
Law" and if you don't know what that means, you must look it up yourself.
I already have supplied my list of changes, their names, and descriptions
on my site.
http://glen_gordon.tripod.com/LANGUAGE/NOSTRATIC/STEPPE/indoeuropean_rules.html
We've also discussed the alternate url using...
http://members.tripod.com/~glen_gordon/LANGUAGE/
I must rename Paradigmatic Strengthening as Paradigmatic Resistance and
also explain Suffix Resistance. Maybe I'll put them right under the
Penultimate Accent Rule.
- gLeN
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