--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:
> No, the "theory of a late development of the feminine" requires
> only a simple reinterpretation and newfound application of an
> existing suffix used for collectivity or diminuation, *-ex.
>
> With an existent animate-inanimate paradigm for *to-, we have
> instances of *tesyo alongside *tod.
[...]
> We don't need to strain over reasons as to why Anatolian isn't
> giving us the evidence we need to prove that Common IE had a
> feminine gender. We accept what we see.
So it is also required of the theory that it offer an explanation of
the actual forms, not least those of surprising and potentially
archaic structure. One would like to know what is really in play in
the inflection of the pronouns: How did forms like the following
come about:
Gen.sg.Fem.: Ved. tásya:s, Goth. thizos
Dat.sg.Masc.: Ved. tásmai, Goth. thamma, OHG dhemu, OPr. stesmu
Dat.sg.Fem.: Ved. tásyai, Goth. thizai - ?
Is the analysis involving the numeral 'one' really wrong? Is *te-sm-
o:y not the dative of a compound made of *te- + *sm-o-, originally
meaning 'this one'? And has the feminine *te-sy-aH2-ay not in that
case lost an /-m-/ in the clustering (Johannes Schmidt again)? If
that is correct, was there really time to do all this in post-
breakup non-Anatolian? If there was, what was the basic idea of the
analysis: Why is the masculine-neuter *te-sm-o- thematic, and the
feminine *te-s[m]-yaH2- formed without thematic vowel? How can this
have been a productive system after the breakoff from Pre-Anatolian?
Note that the two stems survive as *sm.-o- in Goth. sums, Gk. me:d-
/oud-amós and *sm-iH2- in Gk. mía. Why is it that we here do find *-
o- and *-iH2- on a par with each other, while the productive pattern
is that thematic stems form fem. *-e-H2-, and *-iH2- is used in
athematic stems only? This must reflect an archaism. Was that
archaism really younger than the breakoff of Anatolian, and was
later replaced by the normal pattern?
I forgot one point of archaic feminine remain in Hittite in an
earlier posting: The Anittas has a number of times <sa-ni-ya ú-it-
ti> 'within one year', where the numeral 'one' has a stem
containing -i-, here followed by the case marker -a used in concord
with the locative. Where does the stem in -i- come from if not from
the feminine? Doesn't this indicate very strongly that the feminine
of 'one' had a suffixal -i- of some kind, and that the Anatolian
form of it reflects the old feminine?
If the rise of the feminine is so clear as to satisfy Glen's quest
for simplicity, why is it then so opaque in its oldest forms which
must have formed the basis of the whole process? This adds up to the
verdict that the explanation is on the wrong track.
Jens