Re: [tied] Germanic nominal declensions

On Wed, 16 Jul 2003 12:33:01 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<piotr.gasiorowski@...> wrote:

>15-07-03 15:47, Miguel Carrasquer wrote:
>
>> Acc. *-om *-aN
>> n. *-om *-aN
>> Runic -a, ENWGmc. -0. P. Ramat suggests that the famous inscription "ek
>> hlewagastiz holtijaz horna tawido" is perhaps better translated as "I
>> Hlewagastiz [son] of Holt made [these] two horns", but I don't know if that
>> is meant as a suggestion that *-aN had perhaps already been reduced to -0
>> in Runic, or as a suggestion that perhaps the dual was still alive in
>> Germanic at that early stage. In any case, he reconstructs PGmc. *-aN.
>
>There are no facts known to me that would speak against a Proto-Germanic
>date of the loss of *-n (< *-m, *-n). I take the development to be *-om
> > *-an > *-a (already in PGmc.), without nasalisation on short vowels.

There's the point quoted by Peter:
-- Streitberg says "That at one time nasal vowels had come into existence
-- in the accusative is shown by the fact that older northern runic
-- inscriptions already have apocope of -a in absolute auslaut.., whereas
-- an -a that follows a nasal survives."

I guess that means that we can choose to reconstruct PGmc *-a vs *-aN, or
*-0 vs. *-a (from PIE *-o vs. *-on/*-om).

>> pl.
>>
>> The nominative in *-oi is unattested in Germanic. PIE *-o:s would have
>> given PGmc. *-o:z, which explains Goth -o:s and ON -ar, but not OE -as, OS
>> -os. The reconstruction is thus:
>>
>> PIE *-ó:ses *-o:siz
>> *'-o:ses *-o:ziz
>>
>> which explains all the forms (Goth. -o:ss > -o:s, ON *-o:ziz > -arr > -ar,
>> OE/OS *-o:siz > *-as). OHG -a is the acc. form.
>
>The OE and OSax. forms are certainly strange and seem to require some
>kind of "extension" to prevent the *s from word-final voicing (already
>in PGmc.!). *-iz would do the trick, but I suspect the whole affair is
>internal to Germanic and there's no need to drag in anything as risky as
>"PIE" *-o:ses. I'd sooner consider a more conservative solution: *-o-es
> > *-o:s ~ *-o:s-es > *-o:z ~ *-o:siz with a doubly marked variant of
>the plural that arose within Germanic.

Did I not mention Skt. -a:sas? Apparently not. There are several
possibilities:

(1) Skt. and Germanic independently added -es to the PIE pl. ending *-o:s

(2) PIE already had a variant *-o:s-es, inherited by Skt. and Gmc., lost
elsewhere.

(3) The Skt. and Gmc. forms are not related: Gmc. being an innovation *-o:s
+ *-es, but Skt. continuing *-os-es, where *-os would be the old nom.pl.
ending (stressed thematic vowel + unstressed *-es > post-zero-grade *-os
[cf. Gsg. *-é-esyo > *-ósyo, Lsg. *-é-ei > *-oi vs. Dsg. *-e-éi > *-o-éi >
*-o:i]), which, for understandable reasons [confusion with Nsg.], was
either extended with *-es or replaced by newly created *-o + *-es > *-o:s
[both present in Sanskrit].

(4) The Skt. and Gmc. forms _are_ related, both from *-oses as per
possibility (3), but in Germanic, *-oses > *-o:ses by analogy/merger with
*-o:s.

>> Before I go on with the C-stems, I'm almost sure Piotr posted something
>> about Germanic n-stems some time ago, but I can't find it...
>
>I can't find it either, but I vaguely recall that I wrote something
>about the n-stems when we were discussing the Gothic genitive plural.
>What's remarkable about the nasal stems is the relatively archaic
>bahaviour of the weak masculines (with the preservation of ablaut and
>even traces of the contrast between *-o:n and *-e:n), and the Germanic
>innovations leading to the development of secondary gender contrasts.

I'm struggling to understand the vocalism of the feminine n-stems (-o[n]-
in ON, -un- in OS, -u:n- in OHG). In OHG obl. zungu:n, the fact that
"tongue" was an uh2-stem might be relevant, but would the u: spread to all
feminine n-stems?


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...