[tied] Re: Syncope

From: elmeras2000
Message: 31845
Date: 2004-04-11

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> So which do you think is a more sensible solution at this
> point? One that assumes without establishing a NON-contradicting
> pattern that *s went 'bye-bye' just in this sole case out of
> nothing but convenience? Or one that is based on what is an
> overwhelmingly clear and non-contradicting pattern of endingless
> locatives and suffixed deictics in pre-IE? There is no contest.

The former. I believe you are right, there is hardly a real contest
involved in this.

If the -o of *-syo and *so is to be explained there must have been a
voiced segment after it. We have other reasons to ascribe earlier
voice to the nominative marker, so I conclude (since assuming is
bad, I now simply conclude) that the forms once ended in *-syoz,
*soz. There is no contradition involved in accepting reduced forms
of enclitic elements, so I conclude this happened with *-oz if the
preceding consonantism contained /s/. That defuses the contradiction
assumed to exist vis-à-vis genitives in *-sos which did not have
*/z/.

Jens