--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:
>
> As for the O-fix, I'm more ready to accept the process in
> nominal stems than in causatives, regardless of its
> foundation. I checked out your Feb 10 posting of "Infixal
> /o/" and found that ultimately there was no deep reasons
> for positing the O-fix in the causative from what I
> could see mentioned. For example, while it might be
> functionally correct to say that the causitive verb root
> is a little longer than it is expected to be under the
> normal processes of quantitative ablaut, there's nothing
> to suggest that your analysis is the only one, nor that it
> is the most optimal idea around.
Well, if no other idea that works can be suggested it does seem to
be the only one. It accepts much more of the language as we find it
and is free of contradiction, which cannot be said of yours. To say
that the first syllable of, say, *bhor-éye-ti is just /bhr-/ is
absurd, for /bhr-/ could just have been realized as is.
>
> You use *mon-éye-ti, which is expected to be **mn-éye-ti,
> and also *swó:p-ye-ti, expected to be **swép-ye-ti (this
> 2nd analysis I don't agree with). You deduce from this
> that the stem is "an *o longer" than it should be. This
> is a quantum leap since it can only be legitimately
> asserted that the stems are longer than expected at
> best, not "an *o longer" (and yes I'm aware of your
> analyses of qualitative ablaut which can also be
> interpretted differently).
>
> On the other hand however, these examples can be
> analysed a different way: They _resist_ ablaut and
> are in the *o-grade. The question that needs to be
> answered is whether the resistance is caused by the
> O-fix as you say, or is it because they had developped
> to the state they are now found in Reconstructed IE
> after the automatic process of quantitative ablaut had
> passed on. Nothing stated in the post shows that the
> O-fix must be accepted. In my view, after giving a
> valid linguistic motivation for your O-fix that was
> lacking, there is nothing that would place the
> causative at risk of the "infix".
So it's o-grade, but not ablaut? It is no improvement to call it o-
grade instead, rather it is a quantum leap backwards to the time
before we began distinguishing different kinds of o-vocalism in PIE.
I find it undignified when you call it O-fix and would like to ask
you not to do that. I also fail to see what is gained by rejecting
one of my theories only to repeat all of its contents elsewhere in a
place where it does not apply. It's like accepting relativity only
for literary analysis.
> All we can immediately see the causative being is a
> full *o-graded root, sometimes with alternating accent
> that evidently resists ablaut. It can just as easily,
> if not more easily without wonky mysterious phonemes,
> resist ablaut because the accent and perhaps the
> causative paradigm itself was formed after the process
> of quantitative ablaut had ended. Clearly at some point
> it did end. The stems *wlkWo- and *suxnu- with accent
> on their initial syllables prove this event
> conclusively.
I do not think the language is so poorly known that there can appear
new categories like this out of nowhere. If the causative were so
young it would be derived from something we know about and by a
process we can trace.
The forms you mention at the end only prove what you say if you
conceive of the full-grade as *derived* by a process of vowel-
insertion changing zero into -e- (or some other full-grade vowel) in
a segment that carries the accent already. I know that is not what
you mean, so these words have no business here (and "son" is end-
stressed).
> What we gain from this more straight-forward
> explanation is a solution that doesn't need to be
> further explained. In contrast, we must explain your
> "consonantal" *O phoneme. Why must we? Without further
> evidence, I can't be bothered scratching my head on
> that one.
But you are not explaining the causative, you are giving up on it.
You fail to find a way to accomodate its structure in your entire
framework of IE morphophonemics, so you blame the facts. To you it
is young and reckless. However, the younger parts of the language
ought to be even easier to analyse than the oldest parts, and indeed
it is hard, and therefore I consider it very old, at least old
enough to have been present in the language when the vowel-deleting
ablaut occurred. The very fact that it has a Narten counterpart
should also be ranked as a sure sign of its extreme antiquity.
And then it becomes a tough question what the language has had to
work on that can have developed into the forms we see in the
causative and other categories structured like it. I have battled
with that problem and have arrived at a solution that works. The
solution is that this element is not the old root vowel at all, but
an added element which, in the common form of the causative, is
positioned inside the root following its initial consonantism. When
positioned there the element is descriptively an infix. In a few
very specific cases the element appears prefixed, so there it is a
prefix. Nobody forms infixes, so it is the prefix that is the older
form of the two, and the infix can then only have come about by
metathesis which can be assumed at no cost at all. Contrary to what
you say the infix theory is very well founded: The element works
just like a consonant in not influencing the ablaut at all. In *O-
wert-éy-e- the consonantal prefixed element is metathesized to the
position after the initial consonantism. In the resulting *wOert-éy-
e- the accent is still on the suffix so the root vowel is deleted,
which yields *wOrtéye- whence IE *wortéye- 'make turn'. The earlier
consonantal character of the -o- is shown by its further allomorphy.
In the categories that have this vocalism we find laryngeal deletion
which is absurd with a vowel and does not occur any real vowel, not
even -o- from other sources. We also find a variant form without
the -o-, restricted to specific root structures of a make that
invites the interpretation that the element had become an infix here
too but was lost before it was syllabified. That too is repeated in
the other categories that have this vocalism.
If instead the appearance of -o- in the relevant categories is
ascribed to phonotactic causes and dated to a period younger than
the appearance of stress-triggered zero-grade, the account becomes
absurd. For if the -o- of *wort-éye-ti is there only to avoid a
structure "/wrt-éye-ti/", surely the same element would have been
inserted in the participle /wrt-tó-/ or the root noun /wrt-/, which
is not the case (Skt. vr.ttá-, vr.'t-). In actuality the structures
your fancy alternative vowel insertion is meant to avoid are not
prohibited by the language at all, but are in fact quite common.
That ought to be enough.
Jens