Re: [tied] Re: Risoe fo the Feminine (was: -osyo 3)

Will the torches of the Ancient-Feminine camp ever be finally
snuffed out? Sadly it would appear not, just as IndoSemiticists
still operate under the guise of shotty Nostraticists.

I think is the full list in jot-form of the issues raised so
far to somehow demonstrate that the feminine must have existed
long before the seperation of Anatolian from IE. I feel unswayed.
So I suppose I will respond one-by-one as concisely as possible.


1. Why two endings: thematic *-ex & athematic *-yex-?

Because *-ex is from *-&-x, a typically "thematized" variant
of *-x in order to convert it to an animate suffix for the
function of animate collective, or hell, even "singulative" if
you like that term better.

However, *-ix/*-yex- is a composite suffix taking advantage
of the athematic *i-collective. Before you think blindly that
*-ex should do just fine to convert an athematic masculine
to an athematic feminine, you should realize that the whole
point is that *-ex is THEMATIC. So we need an "athematic"
suffix and *-ex didn't cut it. On the other hand, by combining
two athematic suffixes together, *-i and *-x (both of collective
origin), a unique feminine suffix for athematic stems was created.

Otherwise, the whole athematic/thematic system would fall by the
waist side and thematic stems would only be distinguished in the
masculine or neuter for some bizarre hypothetical reason that we
thankfully need not worry about.


2. How can *-yex- show ablaut if it's not old

A stupid question that you never cease to ask despite constantly
giving you the straightforward answer: Function and Formation are
two seperate issues. A suffix can be created during an ablauting
stage (even _after_ Syncope as I established earlier) and yet
still not be a functional feminine until quite late. Draw
a diagram. It's not that hard. Ablaut has no relevance here.
As I've always said, *-ix is a composite made up of *-i- and *-x
which were ablauting suffixes already.


3. We never see *-ix/yex- as a collective marker

So? Its individual components certainly were.


4. If *newex is both pl.n & sg.f, why the athematic contrast?
Why *-ux pl.n not also feminine instead of *-éw-ix

Because the unique etymology of *-ix as described above makes it
so. The athematic feminine needed to be distinct from the thematic
in order to preserve that athem./them. system. It still all
derives from the collective *-x in the end.


5. Why *-ont-s versus feminine *-nt-ix

Why not? What's really the issue here?


6. Origin of i-adjectives

One consideration is Schwa Diffusion where *& became *i pretonically.
This ultimately produced "compound stems" ending in *i pairing
with their regular thematic *o-stem counterparts (since the latter
contained *& posttonically where *& fragmented into e/o alternation).


7. Anatolian's Motions-i, used often in nonneuter strong cases,
must show *-ix, for what else could it be

Lots of things, including the very *i-collective that the athematic
feminine is based on. There's also the Schwa Diffusion situation
which caused the thematic *o/*i alternation as mentioned in 6.


8. Doesn't /man/ 'when' and /mahhan/ 'as' reflect *mo-m & *me-x-m
just as Latin quom/quam similarly reflects?

No. There's plenty of morphological remnants available to piece
together an origin of /man/ and /mahhan/ without the need for
a feminine. In fact, I don't see how the feminine has anything
to do with "when" or "as" anyway. ???!


Look folks, the irony is that the declension of *to- falls right
into my hands. If you take a look at the situation, we have a
few issues like the *tesyo genitive and the other cases that seem
to be formed on *sm-o-. What's going on? I think it's a lot simpler
than it first looks and as such, the feminine could have derived
largely from the masculine endings in no time flat.

The genitive in *tesyexs would ironically show clearly that the
feminine is NOT ancient because if it were and if deriving it from
**tesyoz were in any way correct, we'd have to expect **tesyex.
Lo and behold, another failure. Not only does **z fail to pop up
but so does **tesyex. So dammit, Jens, stop kicking a dead horse.

What we see is what we expect to see if *tesyo is just the way
it is. Afterall, with masculine *tesyo which we can date specifically
to mLIE according to my method, we may trivially derive a feminine
with *-ex in a stage later than that. (As I said, we have about
500 years to do it. Plenty of time.) Now if *tesyo- + -ex becomes
*tesyex, in one easy step, do you honestly think that this is
impossible. I don't.

But wait, it gets even simpler. The form *tesmoi/*tosmoi can be
confidently derived from *to- + *sm-o-. You're right. However,
the feminine can yet again be transparently derived from the
masculine in 1.5 easy steps: *to-smoi => *to-smyexei > *to-syexei.

So what's so hard? What process here takes millenia to develop?
Nothing. The entire feminine paradigm can be derived from the
masculine in a mere generation.

Further, the issue with why we have *to-s(m)yexei instead of
expected **to-smexei is an issue that you have to raise with
the stem *sm-o-, not with *to- itself. It's clear that without
the thematic, *sm- is zero-grade and a defective stem to decline.
The thematic is a necessary component for an otherwise undeclinable.
So, we find athematic *-ix and not *-ex attached to athematic *sm-
because all *sm- needs is another syllable to make it declinable.
We don't need to go from *sm- to *sm-o- to *sm-e-x, when we can
just go from the base *sm- to *sm-ix-. Thus we find *sm-o-/*sm-ix-.

And lastly, the very analysis of *tosmoi as being *to- + *sm-o-
shows exactly why we must reconstruct an endingless locative in
a stage of earlier Late IE. Not only does *-s-yo itself suggest
that *ya was the endingless locative of *ya-s, the fact that
*to- needed a completely different postfixed stem to complete
the other case forms shows that it was deficient in that respect.
There originally WEREN'T any other case forms. Rather, the original
form for locatives, datives, etc of original *ta-s (*to-s) was *ta,
without *sm-o- to help it out.

The original system in mLIE may have been as follows using the
non-enclitic stems:

animate inanimate
NOM *sa *ta
ACC *ta-m *ta
GEN *ta-s *ta-l
DAT-LOC *ta *ta

It's possible that *tesyo was formed later by analogy with thematic
nouns in *-syo since the paradigm of *to- would never have needed
the disambiguating suffix that the nouns did.


= gLeN
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