Risoe fo the Feminine (was: -osyo 3)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:

> The problem is of course that the theory presupposes spread of
> a "feminine marker" either *-H2- or *-eH2-. Now we are told
> that "other case forms" supply the basis of it. But what case

forms

> could possibly have a feminine marker if there was no feminine
> category? And if the category was in reality a collective, why was
> the collective *teH2 not used as a feminine, which instead took

the

> funny form *seH2? Was there an event of replacement of a feminine
> *teH2 in non-Anatolian IE, or was *seH2 already formed before
> Anatolian broke off, and then as a collective?

The theory of a late development of the feminine requires the
development of feminine adjectives. I presume this would come about
because adjectives were almost substantives in apposition to the
head noun. To do this, we need a female suffix, not a feminine
suffix. English has a couple of female suffixes, '-ess' and '-
ette', but no lexical gender.

Don't thematic adjectives of two terminations (i.e. idnetical
msculine and feminine) argue for the feminine being 'recent'? I
think the same could be said for the various feminine-only
adjectives that occur in Greek.

Of course, the feminine gender's being recent does not mean it was
not present in Proto-Indo-Hittite, but does make it plausible as an
innovation of the IE branch.

Richard.