On Fri, 23 May 2003 18:21:39 +0000, fortuna11111
<
fortuna11111@...> wrote:
>> > And I don't want to petty about the vowel quantity because it is
>> > observed to be short as Eva has even kindly pointed out.
>
>I have not pointed it out. At first it was a joke and self-irony, then
>I just ended up with another question in my mind. The vowel in
>Abl. Sg. m/n is long, but it does include a thematic vowel plus /a/,
>or it could be an /a:/. Sanskrit alone, I guess, does not allow any
>conclusions on the length of the vowel.
Actually, it does. Skt. -a:t can in principle reflect
*-{e:|a:|o:}{t|d}, so the length is a given. If we add Latin -o: (Old
Latin -o:d) the only remaining possibilities are *-o:t and *-o:d.
Unfortunately, neither Slavic -a nor Lithuanian -o (both from *-o:(C)
or *-a:(C)) can shed any further light on the nature of the final
consonant, although the Balto-Slavic accent does establish that the
vowel was not only long, but circumflex (contracted from -VV-).
The only further forms are Hittite -az, Luwian -ati, which seem to
have an added *-i, but otherwise point to *t (not Luwian, where /t/
can be from *t, *d or *dh, but Hittite, where the palatalization
product of *ti is -z(i), while *-di > -s(i) and *dhi > -t(i)). All in
all, the form can be reconstructed as *-oot(i) for thematic stems, and
therefore *-ot(i) for athematic stems.
Some time ago, I suggested here that the Slavic adjectival and
pronominal genitive ending -ego/-ogo (northern Russian /-Ivó/ ~
/-&vó/) can also be derived from the ablative endings *-eo(t),
*-oo(t), with glides /h/ (> /g/) or /w/ (> /v/) to break the hiatus.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...