--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Mate Kapovic" <mkapovic@...>
wrote:
> I don't see why some linguists reconstruct *-o:ns in the A. pl. of
o-stems.
We do so because we find a long vowel in Sanskrit. Most of the other
languages cannot show the difference. Still, I deem it reasonable to
derive Lith. -úos- from *-o:ns also, since it is acute.
> Structuraly, we would expect *-o-ns like *-u-ns and *-i-ns in u-
and
> i-stems. Also, I don't see how can we get different endings in A.
pl. for o-
> and eh2-stems in Sanskrit and Gothic if we reconstruct o-stems as
*-o:ns.
We can if *-o:ms developed differently form original *-aH2ms. The
combined evidence of Gothic -o:s and IIr. -a:s points to a PIE form
of the acc.pl. of a:-stems without the nasal. It is now commonly
assumed to have been lost in the prehistory of IE already, an idea
proposed by Stang and now often referred to as his law. The
confusion between nom.pl., acc.pl. and even gen.sg. in a:-stems in
Balto-Slavic also points in the direction of an acc.pl. without a
nasal, so that the nasality of these endings would be due to
secondary nasal insertion by analogy (as in Greek and Italic), and
its spread would be hypercorrect.
> In Sanskrit *-eh2ns > *-a:ns and *-o:ns would give the same thing
(and we
> have -a:s and -a:n), and in Gothic they would also give the same
thing and
> we have -o:s and -ans (directly attesting PIE short *-o-!).
Sanskrit -a:n
> would have to have an analogical length from N. pl.
We have a few instances of */aHNC/ in IIr. which come out as /aaC/,
e.g. váata- 'wind', Av. må /maah/ 'month' (from *meH1-n.s). That
does not point to merger of *-eH2ns and *-o:ns in that branch.
Jens