From: elmeras2000
Message: 31887
Date: 2004-04-13
--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:
[JER:]
> >You can always imagine that the facts of the language are non-
> >original and invent some other language and explain that instead.
[MCV:]
> I'm not inventing anything. Everybody knows that the
> acc.pl. comes from *-m plus *-s. Isn't it obvious?
Yes, that's why I want the *-s to be there, while I observe you
pulling it off.
>
> >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.
If the acc.pl. contained a lengthening sibilant we could not have
forms like *kWet-ur-m.s (Ved. catúras, Lith. ke~turis), but would
have to have something ending in *-wor-m.s . There are no acc.pl.
forms of this structure, ergo its *-s did not lengthen.
> 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.
I am painfully aware of this, but I leave it up to the language to
decide.
Jens