Re: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?

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

>
> >> Yes, it's true that your idea almost seems to solve a problem.
> >> However, [...]
>
> Jens:
> > Dissimilation is not unmotivated;
>
> I wasn't done with the idea yet. I had to go for coffee. Coffee
> helps me do things like... walk. God bless coffee, god bless
> the underpaid coffee bean farmers too.
>
> What I wanted to say in full is this and it's similar to
> what I've been saying before but with new facets being explored.
>
>
> HYPOTHESIS:
> ------------
> You say that all disappearances of *s are really disappearances
> of an entirely new phoneme *z that otherwise doesn't show its
> face in IE.

No, I say it shows its face as /s/ when it does show it face as more
than zero (which is also a face if you are a good analyst).

> Yes, there are immediate credibility problems with
> this basic premise of your theory that would prevent many from
> just accepting it at face value. Yet there are problems here
> with all our thoughts so far on Nominative Loss, including even
> my own to a degree. Time to evolve a new solution.
>
> Dealing with what we know, we see nominative *-s isn't in stems
> ending in *n, *r, *l and *y when we'd expect it to be there.
> This loss seems to affect only the nominative which seems to
> suggest that it is somehow special from the other morphemes.
> Its specialness doesn't necessarily mean that it is a different
> phoneme.

But it very well might!

> It could even be because of a morphological specialness
> or some other unique feature that sets the nominative apart from
> other suffixes. However, because of this phonetic-related loss
> after certain phonemes, the specialness has to be at least a
> phonetic one of some kind.

Nice to be understood.

> Now, at this point of inquiry, we cannot just jump to the
> conclusion that phonetic means phonemic and that there is a
> distinct sound *z yet.

Phonemics come in later when we know the system. Until then we only
deal with whhat little indications we get, be they phonetic,
phonemic or even morphophonemic. Sometimes we are below the phone
level and only get indications of a phonetic feature, and not even
necessarily a distinctive one. These points are widely misunderstood.

> We need a very clear reason for doing
> so, otherwise it's just a phonetic allophony of an already
> reconstructed phoneme in IE.

Even that is important information that should not be ignored just
because of its low classification.

> Acc.pl *-ns seems to contradict this, but then I realize that
> if it were still *-ms up to the time of Nominative Loss, then
> *-s wouldn't disappear after *m. With *kWis, if we think of
> *i as a vowel rather than a syllabized consonant, it doesn't
> violate the rule either and *-s is preserved as we find.
> There are then no contradictions of *-s that should be lost
> or *-s that is unexpectedly preserved. Any contradictions of
> phonetics involve the lack of loss of other *s-final phonemes.
>
> So let's stick to the nominative and ignore the question of
> why the genitive in *-os doesn't behave this way for now.
> One problem at a time.
>
> While the set of {*r, *l, *n, *y} seems to form a natural
> class of continuants, *m is not included here meaning that
> the presence of continuants before *-s is an insufficient
> solution. Miguel mentions voicing alone but this doesn't
> work either because consonants aren't included here, some
> of which happen to be voiced.
>
> Instead, to account for the phonetics and the above set, we
> need an articulatory system to explain the loss of *-s.
> Presumably, the unique articulatory quality or qualities of
> the above set caused an allophony of *-s and it was this
> allophone that disappeared while the unaffected variant
> continued on as *s.
>
> The simplest non-contradicting system I can think of for
> this purpose is:
>
> dental or alveolar continuants {*r, *l, *n}
> palatals {*y}
>
> The question is what region of the mouth are these
> continuants pronounced in. For this phonetic solution to
> work, *s cannot be pronounced with the same articulation
> as the two sets above. Plus, the two sets must cause the
> same effect on *s, converting it to an allophone that is
> prone to disappearing.
>
> Perhaps it could be more logical to expect *s to be an
> apicodental while *r, *l and *n are alveolar. Thus, this
> set would alveolarize regular *s to [S]. This in fact
> can work because palatalization can likewise cause [S].
> The two sets then cause the same effect as I had
> discovered recently.
>
> Voicing thus cannot be the primary factor here although
> there's nothing saying that [Z] can't arise as well.

>
> EXAMINATION:
> -------------
>
> Now we go over this new theory with a fine-toothed comb
> to make sure it's not deficient.

That won't be enough, it needs something good in its favour too.

> So if alveoralization is the key then, why don't we see
> the loss of *s in genitive *-os? Quite simply because it
> is preceded by a vowel and none of the above continuants.
> Well... then why doesn't it occur in anything but final
> position? Because *s must occur after the above sets of
> phonemes at the end of the same syllable as the preceding
> phoneme. So we need something like *CVrs.CVC to achieve
> the disappearance. The problem is that *CVrs.CVC can just
> as well be realized as *CVr.sCVC syllabically. In other
> words, there should be a fat chance in hell that *s can
> disappear medially. It therefore makes sense why we
> only observe this in final position.
>
> In fact, back to the "specialness" of the nominative that
> we are forced to conclude from the existence of Nominative
> Loss, we can look at this from a different angle. The
> nominative is in fact unique, syllabically speaking that is.
> It is one of the few suffixes without syllabicity, being
> only a consonant. This then differs from genitive *-os or
> plural *-es but is interestingly similar to aorist *-s-
> in that sense, which also btw produced Szemerenyi Lengthening
> as we all note, yet didn't disappear like the nominative
> for the reasons mentioned above.

Nice to be understood again.

> CONCLUSION:
> ------------
>
> Therefore, a new phoneme is not required at all. The solution
> is thus more optimal than the *z-theory. It can be described
> purely as a case of allophony of *-s. The gain with this
> solution is that it doesn't conflict with the obvious
> idea that nominative *-s is related to *so just as
> inanimate *-d is related to the stem *to-, rather than
> being divorced from this solution and being given more
> laborious questions of where a nominative *-z comes from.

That is no gain and not obvious at all.

> Further, we see how your addition of new instances of
> disappearing *s where there is no need for them in the
> first place is a silly diversion. There was never *-s
> after *so or genitive *-syo. The *-s doesn't solve
> anything because there is no problem here to solve.
> You're trying to solve why *s disappeared in cases where
> THERE IS NO *s PRESENT IN THE FIRST PLACE! So throw
> dissimilation out the window. It's only dragging your
> *z-theory down.

The dreamt-up *-s (< *-z) gives a sensible morphology to items which
otherwise have none. It also offers a motivation for the vowel
timbre of the incomprehensible final *-o of both forms. The fact
that both examples have an /s/ preceding the plac where an *-s seems
lacking is taken by you to count for nothing - is that really so
much better? What is so terrible in explaning a strange nominative
form as an old nominative? And what is terrible in explaining an
inflectoinless cliticized form of the realtive pronoun as an old
nominative which must have made good sense in many sentences where
it was used? The lengthening effect of the s-aorist marker which is
never final also appears to demand a separate phoneme, since other
s's cannot be assumed to have the same effect. Also the nominative
marker I have inherent in the nom.pl. marking *-z-D which ends up
being *-es without accent shift and with all the effects of earlier
lengthening in the stem will seem to demand a phoneme doing
something that cannot really be ascribed to just any sibilant. But
if "other sibilants" were other things at the relevant time, the
lengthening may indeed have been caused by the *only* sibilant the
language had. Still that is grossly overstating the limited
knowledge we have.

> Rather *so never had an *s and doesn't need to because
> the morphological evidence shows that *so was uninflected
> for case... This is what we find.

This is circular.

> We never see a case
> ending after the stem *so- so it's not like I pulled
> a rabbit out of a hat like placing *z's in words where
> they don't belong.

We dont se a stem *so- in *any* other forms; we see *se- in *sa-H2,
and that's it! This is no serious basis for far-reaching
generalizations.

> Genitive *-syo is a composite of genitive *-s after thematic
> and an endingless locative *ya (later *yo- with a new locative)
> with the intended meaning of *[X-s-ya Y] as "Y with which (is)
> X" or simply "X's Y". So postposed *yo forms the start of a
> clause "with which". To add nominative *-s (or even **z, now
> senseless at this point) after *yo only exascerbates the
> semantics.

You mean nominative, I take it.

Now, the suggestion does make inherent sense, but, apart from the
terribly insulting misrepresentation of a serious argument it is
trying to replace, it suffers from quite a few shortcomingss itself.
How can *-yo be an endingless locative? Where do we find such a
form? And where does this language show that it expresses possessive
relations as if they were local? If a nominative *-s is added there
is no problem with the -o-. And what is a nominative *-s doing in
the neuter? Does that not "exascerbate[] the semantics" just as much?

> A nominative *yos would convey "Y which (is) X" falsely
> expressing an equation rather than the proper commitative
> relationship that a locative expresses.

Not if you read the suggestion correctly and tag *yos on to a
*genitive* which would also respect the function, and make the e/o
interplay fall into place. This was in fact my original motivation
for separating the nominative and the genitive sibilants which just
act differently. The genitive should indeed be expected too have the
form that remains if one takes away the added *-yo.

> The whole reason for
> the application of *-yo here was to disambiguate it from the
> identical nominative, so *s in *-syo cannot be given any
> meaning other than _nominative_ in these constructions despite
> the fact that we linguists know that it was originally a
> genitive.

I may not be a linguist, but I certainly don't *know* that. What is
the source of the information about the "whole reason"?

> Further, possession with the locative is supported
> by Turkish and therefore a fully natural solution.

Many things are natural, so is the language itself as it later
presents itself. And there the possessive relation is expressed by a
genitive, not a nominative. Why let that count for zero? To be right
(disregarding the phonetic flaws that show it's wrong), the use of
the locative would have to represent the last manifestation of a
syntax which was given up from then on and has therefore left no
other traces. Then the theory is one that cannot be verified for the
language concerned. That is not much of a recommendation.

> Your only big objection to my solution of *-syo is that you
> can't imagine a stage of IE where there is no case agreement.

I cannot just work on imagination. I can imagine too many things
that are most probably wrong. I need to see the choices made
verified by some solid observation.

> However, in the above construction of the thematic genitive,
> there is nothing saying that there is a modified-modifier
> relationship to begin with! Two nouns can have two different
> cases if they need to convey something properly, even in the
> grammar of IE proper.
>
> So there's really nothing to object to with my solution but
> there's everything to object to when applying *z's that
> aren't there in Reconstructed IE to solve problems that
> don't even exist. Shakespeare said it best: "Much ado about
> nothing."

Don't you know that stems are inflected in IE? Don't you know that
the thematic vowel is *-e when word-final? Don't you know that the
thematic vowel is /e/ in the genitive of pronouns, but /o/ in the
nominative *-os? Is this nothing? No matter how you assess it, I
think it is very much.

And is one suggestion of dissimilation applying to both cases much
ado? No matter how you assess it, I think it is very little. To
boot, it is completely in keeping with the syntactical typology of
the rest of the language.

In Old Norse word-final *-z is assimilated to preceding /n, l, r/,
but not /m/. Final *-s is not assimilated to anything. So we find
nom. steinn, stóll, hamarr, ormr wih genitive steins, stóls, hamars,
orms. That looks like a fine parallel with the IE facts as I have
taken stock of them. You may regard the Norse *-z ("-R") as
alveolar, but the key to the distribution is here definitely in the
sibilant, not in the preceding segment.

Jens