Re: Rise of the Feminine (was: -osyo 3)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham"
<richard.wordingham@...> wrote:

>
> There are a fair few consonant stem adjectives in -d- that do not
> have corresponding masculine or neuter forms:
>
> _basile:ï's_, _basilís_ 'kingly, royal'
> _gorgôpis_ 'fierce-eyed, terrible'
> _dendrôtis_ 'wooded'
> _dikthás_ 'double, divided'
> _dolôpis_ 'artful-looking'
> _Do:rís_ 'Doric, Dorian'
>
> Many have clearly related adjectives applicable to at least
> masculine and feminine:
>
> basíleios (3-termination)
> _gorgó:ps_, _gorgo:pós_ (2-termination)
> _dikhthádios_ 'wooded'
> _Do:rikós_, Dó:rios 'Doric, Dorian'
>
> An interesting pair, perhaps reflecting an original, chaotic state
> of affairs is the pair
> _do:matí:te:s_ (masculine, 1st declension)
> _do:matîtis_ (feminine, 3rd declension in -d-)
> 'belonging to the house or household'.
>
> Should I be looking forward to hearing how Greek -id- is a byform
> of //yeh2// ? :)

You may be told right away that they correspond to the Sanskrit
vr.kí:h.-type with which -id- was identified by Chantraine. My wife
Birgit Olsen has made a spectacle of herself by assuming that IE *-
iH2-o- gave Greek *-ido-, so that Gk. gen. -ídos equals Ved. -ías.
The intermediate stage supposedly had something like -iDo- with a
dental spirant (much like Welsh -ydd from -iyo-). I'm afraid this
reflects my bad influence on her. The paper was published in an
Erlangen congress report (Indoarisch, Iranisch und die
Indogermanistik, Wiesbaden 2000). Nobody liked it, but there were no
arguments against it. I think the truth is sometimes disliked (that
however cannot be taken as a guideline in its own right). - Other
than this I will have to think about the material you have
presented, it certainly deserves serious attention.

> > My arguments for the antiquity of the feminine are as follows:
> >
> > 1. The fem. of athematic is formed by a suffix //-yeH2-// which
> > shows ablaut. The process that brought about ablaut was long

over

> > when Anatolian broke off from the rest of IE, for wordforms

ablaut

> > in Anatolian just as they do in the other branches.
>
> Does this argue for the antiquity of the feminine _gender_, or

just

> for the antiquity of the facultative formation of feminine
> substantives?

Since the deví:-type is the prototypical form of adjectives from
athematic adjectives I would say it formed adjectives more than
anything. I would even suspect it began in adjectives, while the
vrkí:h-type certainly formed substantives, at least primarily.

Jens