Re: [tied] IE genitive

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Sergejus Tarasovas"
<S.Tarasovas@...> wrote:

> The acute->circumflex metatony is regular in monosyllables (that's

why

> we have, say, juo~s < júos or pro~ < pró (but <pró-> the prefix)

etc.).

> One'd better ask where we _don't_ see the rule at work. Well, all

the

> exceptions I am aware of have to do with pronouns' declinational
> flexions : (eg., (Ins. sg. ) jà < já:, (Acc. pl.) jàs < já: and the
> like) and are traditionally explained as analogical after

polysyllables

> (which is supported by dialects, where sometimes even the acute

length

> is restored on the analogy with definite pronouns; and if _this_

is not

> an analogical restoration, then it's a failure of the Leskien's

law,

> which is extremely unlikely).

Could you get this important message across to other scholars, for I
have not been able to do so? I was treated as a complete idiot in a
Festschrift article only a few years ago because I had assumed
precisely that. Not that I had presented the rule as an invention of
mine, I was just applying what I assumed to be common knowledge on
problems I came by. I don't know for what reason, but there seems to
be a strong opinion against the obvious in this matter.

>
> As for the polysyllabic part (+acute (on /au/, /ei/ or /ai/) ->
> [+circumflex]/_# in both mono- and polysyllables), the examples are
> rather trivial: <sakau~> 'I say' < *saká:u, <sakei~> 'you (2sg.)

said' <

> *sakéi, <sakai~> 'you (2sg.) say' < *saká:i).

Yeah, I had a feeling that would be the basis of it. It is not
evidence I would trust too firmly. For in what sense can one really
say that sequences like *-a:- + *-o: and *-a:- + *-ai were ever
acute?

> [...] The rule [of circ. in monosyll., JER]
> works both in open and closed syllables.

I completely agree.

Jens