--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
> OK. I'll try one more time.
>
> Suppose there was a phonetic split that caused an adjectival
suffix,
> whatever its original shape, to split into two.
Exactly, that's the way I see it too.
>
> After the split, we have two _separate_ suffixes: *-u and *-ro.
Yes.
>[...] [Miguel asks, How could speakers still associate the two
forms? He replies:]
> Basically, there seem to me to be four possibilities.
[...]
> 3) At the time of the breakup of PIE, *-u and *-ro shared something
> _semantical_, which was not shared by any other adjectival
suffixes.
> Whatever it was, I cannot recognize it in the semantics of the
attested u-
> and ro-adjectives. They are just adjectives, and they don't seem
to share
> a common semantic overtone, different from that of i-stem or that
of other
> thematic adjectives.
[...]
I have reproduced your third possibility only because that is the
one I will comment upon because I believe it reflects the truth. The
reason you can't see a semantic connection between *-ro- and *-u- is
probably because the semantic content is zero in both. But that
makes them synonymous, and that ought to be enough for one of them
to encroach upon the other. I do not think adjective derivation by
suffixal -i-, -no- or -mo- was productive in PIE (or whatever late
pre-PIE period is relevant here), so we do not have to explain why
we do not find these bursting loose. On the other hand primary
adjectives in -u- and -ro- were plentiful, and by back-formation
from the comparative or superlative where the suffixes are not
present both would be equally obvious, once the original rule of
complementary distribution had been lost memory of. That must have
led to cases of irregular forms, but apparently not to so many that
the rule cannot be sensed through the later noise. By my impression
of analogical change in languages this looks like just about
standard procedure.
Jens