Re: [tied] The disappearance of *-s -- The saga continues

On Mon, 12 Apr 2004 22:22:46 +0000, elmeras2000
<jer@...> wrote:

>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
>
>> I thought you thought the *-s in the acc.pl. _did_ lengthen,
>> at least it was my impression that you reconstructed o-stem
>> acc.pl *-o:ms (*-o:ns).
>
>I do posit IE *-o:ns or *-o:ms, bu that does not mean that the
>pluralizing *-s lengthens. The other cases of the thematic
>declension (which is best preserved with pronouns) have a stem in *-
>oy- in the plural, so I would assume the acc.pl. proceeds from *-oy-
>m-s.

Right, I misremembered.

>This brings *tóy in line with *tóy-s-o::m, *tóy-bhyos, *tó::ys
>(itself perhaps from earlier *tóy-bhis, though I wouldn't know by
>what rules), *tóy-su.

The ins.pl. in -o:ys can also be taken as evidence that the
"plural" *-s lengthens.

On the other hand, as I think your notation with ::
(circumflex long?) is meant to show, there is also the
possibility that we're dealing with a contraction, I would
say from *-oi-is/*-oy-is (and then, in a parallel fashion,
athematic *-bhi-is/*bhy-is > *bhis or *bhi:s).

>> In any case, if *-ms doesn't lengthen a previous /o/, /i/ or
>> /u/ at the PIE level, another possibility to explain the
>> non-loss of *-s in the acc.pl. is that the -s was added
>> _after_ the lengthening rule _and_ after the
>> loss-of-/s/-after-sonorants rule. I at least think that the
>> *-s in the acc.pl., dat/abl.pl., ins.pl. and loc.pl. is
>> secondary, although it's hard to establish exactly _when_ it
>> was added. Could have been pretty early.
>
>You can always imagine that the facts of the language are non-
>original and invent some other language and explain that instead.

I'm not inventing anything. Everybody knows that the
acc.pl. comes from *-m plus *-s. Isn't it obvious?

>I have worked out what the minimum requirements are if they are in
>essence accepted as we find them.

What we find is an ins.pl. in *-o:ys, which _could_ mean
that the "plural" *-s _did_ have a lengthening effect, and
an acc.pl. in *-o:ms which _could_ mean the same thing. So,
unless you can show convincingly that those possibilities do
not apply, I wouldn't exclude them from consideration.
Especially as there is no reason to think that only *-z (as
in the nominative) had a lengthening effect. In fact, we
know that the voiceless fricative *-h2 had the same effect,
so it would be _consistent_ (though not necessarily true)
that the other voiceless fricative *-s, of whichever origin,
should behave in the same way.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...