Jens:
> I am beginning to wonder if one should really be sure
> that IE *se is the same as the 3rd person pronoun of
> Uralic.
I believe I had already stated that *swe is not to
be related to Uralic *sa. Rather, the demonstrative *so,
and subsequently the nominative that derives from it,
should be. Before the Vowel Shift, *so was quite simply
*sa, which is immediately identical with the Uralic
etymon. I feel that its usage as a 3ps is unique to
Boreal (Uralic/EA/CKam) while in IndoTyrrhenian, it
was a postparticle marking the animate nominative. The
original meaning to both IE and Uralic (that is, the
Proto-Steppe stage) was merely a general demonstrative
like English "the", unspecific to proximity. Hence, one
can see how it can at once be used for "he", while
also explicitly establishing nouns as the subject of
a sentence.
Unless someone has a better idea, I think that the whole
reason why *swe = Uralic *sa doesn't work is because in
reality it is a loanword from the Semitic 3ps, coming
to mean an indefinite person in IE, "one, oneself".
> The Uralic 3rd person possessive is structured quite
> differently from the 1st and 2nd person.
I would say that Boreal languages tacked on *sa to the
3ps while IndoTyrrhenian opted to keep the 3ps endingless
until IE went and added a *-t to it. Tyrrhenian, however
shows the endingless 3ps. The 3ps *-t is from eLIE *-t&,
the unstressed version of MIE *ta (> *to-) and I'm
sticking to that story. Coincidentally *to- also has a
perfectly direct correlation in Uralic so my analysis
can't be terribly offtrack.
> Even so, I grant you, if there is an /s/, perhaps a
> different /s/, supported by external evidence, that
> could be invoked for the desinence wanted to sprout
> the sigmatic aorist.
We should all know that I too reconstruct *sW for MIE but
certainly for different reasons than Miguel. However,
my story so far goes that all labiodentals (*sW and
*tW) were dephonemicized to *sw and *tw by the Late
IE period. Only labiovelars held on.
So that means that instances of *tw should hint at
Proto-Steppe *tu in much the same way as the
monophonemic *kW hints at *ku. Yes, it looks
assymmetrical but lo and behold, *twe < IndoTyr *tWe
< Steppe *tu "you" (substantiated further by *me < *mu).
Nothing on my end is hinting at different *s's since
*sW is supposed to simply become *sw, not *s. The
changes I propose therefore are transparent.
In my view, *s should oscillate with *t only in cases
where there was originally final *t. However since this
early *t becomes *s finally, it does not yield *-t.
Whereas *-d does derive from a *-t which existed after
the above became *s. It survived to eLIE when all
phonemes were voiced at the end of a word expect for
laryngeals. So *-t merged into *d (but *-s, while [z],
did not become **z and was afterwards restored to [s]
because there was no such preexisting phoneme).
So where do the *-t's come from? All I know is that
the 3ps is *-t because it was sometimes medial, as in
indicative *-t-i or imperative *-t-u. It derives clearly
from *-t& and we can banter about other possibilities
but this is too efficient a solution for others to
compete with. Yet, while neuter *-d too derives from
*-t&, the neuter was ALWAYS in final position and thus
unprotected by voicing. Now we may know what to look
for to explain *-t.
I would suspect that the instances of this nominal
*-t, as in *xalut or *melit, would have survived the
voicing because this *-t was, like the 3ps, sometimes
suffixed with other morphemes, making it medial and
protecting it from the voicing. If I recall, it was!
We sometimes find *-ti or *-tu as well to form nominal
derivatives. Looks like my theory works.
In conclusion (thank god), we only need an *s, a *t,
and a little ingenuity.
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Oh, speaking of Nostratic and *s versus *sW, I just
realized some proof in favour of reconstructing
*sWeksa, not **sWeksWa, for "six". If it correlates
with *s^idc^u, one might expect that if *s^- => *sw
then ALL instances of *s^ or *c^ should show labial
rounding. However, I just re-remembered my posts
with Piotr a long while back about *nebHos being
a loan from Semitic *napis^u.
If correct, the Semitic word becomes MIE *nebésa,
showing that *s^ => *s medially, not *sw. So from
there, the regular changes I've mentioned a million
and one times before happen:
*nebHés (Syncope)
*nébH&s (Acrostatic Regularisation)
*nébH&.s (Schwa Lengthening)
- Note by this point, all final
consonants 'xcept laryngeals
are voiced, thus:
*nebH&s = [nebH&z]
*nebHas (Schwa Merger with *e or *a)
*nebHos (Vowel Shift)
= gLeN