From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 32321
Date: 2004-04-26
>--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:The theory that -ai~ comes from the soft stems is not mine.
>
>> A slightly parallel case: the Lith. o-stem nom. pl. *-oy
>> (giving acute *-aí > Slavic -i, Lith. -ì), analogicaly
>> replaced in the hard o-stem nouns by the soft ending -ai~.
>>
>> The original situation must have been (I'll use á for
>> stressed acute, à for unstressed acute, â for stressed
>> circumflex, ã for unstressed circumflex):
>>
>> nouns/adjectives:
>> -hard -aí (-aì)
>> -soft A -jaí (-jaì) (light root)
>> -soft B -ijaì > -jaì (heavy stressed root)
>> -soft C -ijaí > -jaî (heavy unstressed root)
>>
>> The contraction of stressed -ijaí (or is it -íjaì?) led to
>> circumflex -jai~ in the "soft C" stems.
>>
>> This situation leads to the endings we find in the
>> adjectives (accents as in Lith.):
>>
>> *-o- : ge~ras -> gerì
>> *-jo- : z^ãlias -> z^alì
>> *-ijo- : dìdelis -> didelì
>> *-íjo- : auksìnis [< *auksini:~s] -> auksìniai
>>
>
>Interesting. But *ai > *ie is not commonly accepted, and the medìnis-
>type adjectives' -iai is usually explained by the influence of the
>nominal declension: not only medìniai, but tíems medìniams, dvíem
>medìniam, medìni! (vs. gerì, geríems, gerie~m, geras! -- a "proper"
>adjectival paradigm), in colloquial speech sometimes also medìniui,
>medìnyje (vs. gerám, geramè), in many dialects a whole paradigm is
>borrowed from the *-ijo-nouns. The influence is ascribed to the fact
>the *-ijo-adjectives are very often -- much more often than any other
>ones -- substantivized (that substantivization is insomuch productive
>that it seemes to me every *-ijo-adjective has already been
>substantivized -- cf. auksìnis 'gold coin', medìnis 'clog' etc. etc.).