Just realized I typed *-ax again when I had promised
to steer away from phonetic transcription towards a
phonemic one. I should write *-ex.
Miguel:
> The feminine has nothing to do with the collective.
Another assertion, but no accompanying logic, and then
some muttering about Semitic that has little to do
with IE anyway.
We know that the masculine-feminine-neuter comes from a
former animate-inanimate system. There are a few dissenters
but they aren't important and their arguements not very
sturdy :P
The feminine overall is a kind of grammatical "compromise"
between the earlier animate and inanimate genders. This
is conclusively shown by the fact that the feminine shares
animate inflections like accusative *-m with the masculine
yet employing endings *-ex and *-ix like the ones we know
to have been used in inanimate collectives.
Since there are not only inanimate collectives in *-x
but _masculine_ words ending in similar suffixes, we
can only conclude that *-ex is ultimately an _animate_
ending (preceding masculine-feminine) and that it is
a crossover "animatized" ending from the inanimate
collectives.
But no doubt you'll do some more of the ol' "gLeN-thinks-
the-sky-is-blue, so-I-thinks-it's-red" argumentation or
respond with annoying and uncommunicative "no"'s to every
word I type.
>>The ending *-ih2 is a composite of *-i- and feminine.
>
> What *-i-? Where does it come from? What does it mean?
> What's it doing in the oblique of the a:-stems?
You mean *ex-stems. Perhaps you still remember the more
mainstream consensus on IE phonology, the one where three
laryngeals exist and *sW is deemed luxurious fantasy?
The *-i- can mean a lot of things I suppose but since *-ix
is ultimately inanimate like the noncomposite version *-ax,
it seems most sensible to analyze it as another collective
ending seen in other stems without *-x.
= gLeN