[tied] Re: Nominative Loss. A strengthened theory?

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

> [...] So while we might
> imagine a construction like */wlkWosyo hWo:kWs/ "eyes of the
> wolf", underneath the surface the meaning is "the eyes
> (being) with the wolf" / "the wolf (having) eyes" / "the
> eyes (had) by the wolf".

The form can at best mean 'an eye of a wolf', but that should
qualify also. However, it does not add up:

If *-yo is an endingless locative of the relative pronoun (Oh dear,
ending in *-o), and the s-forms are nominatives, the phrase would be
construed to mean "the eye at which there is a wolf". That is
nowhere near what is meant. The 'eye' here varies with its role in
the syntax, but if both nouns are in the nominative, the ohrase
could also have meant "the wolf at which there is an eye", but that
would not be much better. Or is it so elliptical as to be rendered
properly by "the eye [which is at the place] where the wolf is"??
This is getting funnier every day.

> The semantics are without a single problem

They're not.

> and since we DO
> see endingless locatives elsewhere in IE whereas we DON'T see
> nominative *-s disappearing after vowels (and no, *so is not
> a clear example of this at all), the solution is painfully
> obvious at this point.

There are lots of endingless locatives in IE, they just never end in
*-o. The only case in point I know for the thematic vowel is
the "augment" *(H1)é 'then' and perhaps the particle *kWe 'and'.
Word-final thematic vowels have the shape *-e. One way of accounting
for the irregular shape *-o would be to imagine that it was not
originally word-final, just to see if that proves useful.

> In fact, Jens insistance that *-syo is from earlier **-syoz
> based on his conjecture that *so < **soz is evidently
> circular and therefore flawed.

That does not necessarily make it flawed. All explanation in
internal reconstruction is circular, it is only a matter of the size
of the circle. At least I have something recurring, although I
suggested my analysis before I had that. Now that I do I observe it
does not change anything in your evaluation which is definitely a
sign of your not even trying to be objective.

> Everything is in fact normal with my construction afais. Jens
> insists on irregularities that aren't apparent to provide even
> more solutions that aren't necessary, which can only lead to a
> wildly erroneous view of Pre-IE.

No, ignoring irregularities does that, you're well on your way.

> > As the noun phrase cases would then be marked on
> > the 'possessor', the composed genitive ought to have nominative
> > and oblique forms at the very least - both *-osyo and **-omyo.
>
> Which is a flaw that Jens can't recover from without more and
> more and more conjecture. Multiplication of hypotheses is unsound.

Hey, that was an objection raised against your analysis, not against
mine. I am not sure it is valid. Even if the 'eye' of your master
sentence may also occasionally be the object of a larger phrase, it
would be "the eye at which the wolf is" with the wolf constantly in
the nominative. But that demands this underlying analysis which we
have not seen you make.

> As we all know, there is no **-omyo anywhere and therefore even
> less basis for believing that the *s in *-syo was a nominative.
> It's clearly a _genitive_ that was going to merge with the
> nominative in mLIE unless action was taken.

So now the first part of *wlkWos-yo is itself already a genitive? In
your opinion, just as in mine?? Then what *is* the underlying sense
conveyed by the construction? "The eye at which the wolf's [what?]
is" ??? This does get funnier every time I try to understand it.

> Of course, we might ask why we don't see *-omyo for the same
> reason (where *-om is the gen.pl) but this becomes clear now.
> Follow me here: The genitive in *-os could not recover from
> homophony with the nominative no matter what. It could not
> become *-o:s (since this was already the nominative plural,
> ie: *-o- + *-es). It absolutely needed another suffix to
> disambiguate it from all other *s-endings in the paradigms.
>
> On the other hand, the plural genitive in *-om needed only to
> lengthen to *-o:m (ie: *-o- + *-om) to avoid merger with the
> accusative singular. None of this can be explained if we hold
> on to the mistaken belief that the *s in *-syo was a nominative.
>
> So, *-s-yo can be nothing other than a genitive with an ancient
> locative form that would have become *yo in IE proper if it
> weren't for its replacement with a new form at the last moment.
>
>
> > I much prefer the suggestion that the relative pronoun was an
> > uninflected particle, as in non-standard English 'as' (e.g. 'It's
> > the poor as gets the blame.')
>
> Well, we can state this for *so because it doesn't ever have a
> case ending attached to it (only feminine *-x which is a gender
> marking, not a case ending). However, we know that *yo- was
> inclined so it's rather impossible to support this view. So,
> yet again, we have to accept that the endingless *-yo is indicates
> an old endingless locative which was later replaced by a more
> analogical, synthetic form in a more recent layer of pre-IE.


> Perhaps you became entranced by this idea after accepting that
> *so was entirely undeclined in the past. However, you have to
> understand that earlier MIE *sa is a special marker very different
> from the other demonstratives in IE. It was like English "the" and
> similarly, English speakers don't use "the" in the exact same way
> as we use "this" or "that". The latter two words have a greater
> freedom, usable as a replacement for the noun while "the"
> absolutely requires an accompanying noun. So *so is ultimately
> a definite particle seperate from the demonstrative system
> exemplified by proximal *ko- and distal *to- (ironically the same
> system as Tyrrhenian *ka and *ta), relative *yo- and interrogative
> *kWo-.

These are arrogant decrees issued on no basis at all. You just don't
know anything about all this.

Rather if you go to the extreme of appointing *yo an endingless
locative of irregular shape used in an illogical syntactic
construction, why not do the same with *so which is structured just
the same? The logic is perfect, neither analysis is supported by
anything, so if one is acceptable the other one cannot be inferior
to it. Then *so 'at it' would give the same impressive amount of
interesting sense in a phrase *so wiH1ros 'that man' which would be
originally "the man in that", i.e. "the man (who's) here". That
would be just as compelling as your interpretation of *-yo as a
locative. And then the nominative ending *-s would become an orphan,
poor thing.

Jens