Re: [tied] Demonstratives

Glen wrote:

> ponaryad@...:

>>The same rule (deletion of *i before *á-) also explains

the

>>feminine forms:

> Ugh. Let's end the madness now. As

far as I see, the feminine

> was simply *-ah2, a "thematized"

variant of inanimate *-h2,

> used in collectives. So the feminine ending

was at one time

> merely to convey a human collective. This is much

simpler,

> and it's more in line with Anatolian which lacks the

feminine.

> The ending *-ih2 is a composite of *-i- and feminine.

That's

> all. We see the two variants side-by-side. So we don't

need

> (nor does it work) to apply i-deletion rules randomly to
>

solve anything. There was no i-deletion; The *i just wasn't

> there to

begin with in the places where we don't see it.

> Why it's elementary, my

dear Watson.

Oh! Thank you, Glen, for this cold water on my pure head! But, I see, you read this theme we are talking about without deep attention.

Firstly, the idea that the original feminine ending was *-ih2, where *-i- was deleted in certain circumstancies, etc., is really not mine, but Miguel's. I only wrote that, if reconstructed so, similarities in Mongolic can be found. (Really, I thought about this for a long time before, and it seemed to me that the parallel should be false, becouse the correspondention IE -h2 ~ Mong. -i hardly can exist.) But, of course, before speaking about any external connections, we must be sure that the IE reconstruction itself is correct. So I asked Miguel about the reasons to reconstruct *-ih2, and they really exist, although this is not the only possible reconstruction, and the explanation you are writing about is perhaps better. But at the same time I still don't see why Miguel's explanation must be necessarily wrong.

>

href="mailto:ponaryad@...:">ponaryad@...:

>>*bi:re

"wolf" ~ wlkWo- "wolf"

> I can say confidently

that this has to be a red herring.

> I'd much rather shape my

understanding of the sound

> correspondences of two languages on

pronominal stems and

> the like first before delving into the expansive

vocabulary

> surrounding the grammatical items.

This is just what I do.

> If you just compare any
> word together without paying attention

to the grammatical

> details, you can connect anything with

anything.

> The interrogative pronouns would suggest that IE

*kW

> corresponds to Altaic *k. Therefore if IE *wlkWo-
> were to

exist in Altaic, one would expect *k in it.

Only if IE *-kWo- is not a suffix here.

> However, analysis

within IE discounts such a connection too.

> The stem *wlkWo- with accent

on the initial is most likely

> a nominal derivative of a descriptive

adjective *wlkWó-.

Why necessarily adjective? And why necessarily descriptive? If really connected with Alt. *bi:re, it seems that here we have a diminutive or something like.

> It is such an adjectival form whose accent and ablaut are
>

more in line with each other. Due to this greater alignment,

> it is the

adjectival form that is probably older, thereby

> eroding any possibility

of finding a nearby cognate in

> Altaic, Uralic or Tyrrhenian. You'd have

an easier time

> with *kwon- "dog".

For *kwon the Altaic parallel exists as well: *kaNV. This time the comparison is not mine: it is present in Starostin's Etymological dictionary of Altaic languages.

>>*beta "sea; ford" ~ *wet-

"water"

> Again, a red herring. Uralic *wete = IE *wodr

(more or

> less). The heteroclitic ending *-r was attached to the
>

o-grade of *wed- "to moisten" in IE. Hence "that which

>

moistens". In Uralic, it is the bare stem. Thus IE *w

> <=>

Uralic *w.

In Uralic *wete "water". So there's no reason to propose the primary meaning "to moisten" in IE. It is true that IE *w <=> Ural. *w.

>>*bedu "thick, large" ~ *weto-

"old"

> A very suspect connection. The phonetics are

divergeant
and so too are the meanings.

Semantically it is the worst example I have mentioned. But phonetical correspondences are good: IE *w- <=> Ural. *w- <=> Alt. *b-.

> Again, it would be better
> to start with small grammatical

words first like pronouns.

> We see from it that Altaic *b <=> IE *m/*bH.

Where do you find Alt. *b <=> IE *m? (Don't mention the Turkic examples! Alt. *m- > Turk. *b- everywhere.)

Alt. *b <=> IE *bH really exist, but Alt. *b <=> IE *w exists as well. Note that Altaic has no *w at all. What is then the correspondence for IE/Uralic *w? I think that surely *b-. And those little grammatical words you are speaking about proove this very well: cf. Alt. *bi "I" ~ IE *we-; Alt. bol- "to be, to become" ~ Ural. *wole- (I consider that the latter is a grammatical word too, isn't it?).

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Vadim Ponaryadov