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

>> 1. Why two endings: thematic *-ex & athematic *-yex-?
>>
>> Because *-ex is from *-&-x, a typically "thematized" variant[...]
>
> Agreed, if it means that *-ex consists of thematic vowel *-e- +
> collective marker *-H2. (I'll use traditional notation.)

We're officially agreed.

> But taking only one of the two morphemes which *-eH2 consists of,
> viz. *-H2 alone, would have done it just as well. Surely the
> question is not being addressed.

It was addressed because *-x is athematic which therefore is a suffix
that doesn't make sense for a _thematic_ stem. The whole point of
Thematicization was to create a seperate animate version of inanimate
suffixes, so *-x would doubly not be used for the feminine then.

> Is the *-i now also a collective? What is the basis of this sudden
> assertion?

No, the *-i was _always_ a collective and I had always said this.
Apparently you missed stems ending in *-t-i- which form abstract
stems, for example. It may also be at the end of *xawi- "bird" which
is an animal most often found in flocks.

> Why would speakers need a uniqe feminine suffix for athematic stems,
> if they did not mind using the collective form for the *thematic*
> feminine? Again, the question is not being addressed.

The matter of the "neuter plural" is evidently complicated considering
that neuters were spoken of in the 3ps regardless of plurality. That
fact shows this inanimate plurality must not have originally been of
interest to the IE speaker. You assume that a neuter plural *-x was
developped at the same time as the feminine in *-(e)x. In reality,
it may just as well be that when the feminine arose, the neuter "plural"
had not yet taken form.

In that way, there is no paradox because *newax would then have only
been used as a _feminine_ adjective with the neuter always being
*newom, singular AND plural. In fact, the use of *-om in the neuter,
originally a genitive _plural_, hints clearly that neuter plurality
was once a foreign concept. (So to be clear, the inanimate *-x would be
used as a _derivational_ suffix to convey collective objects, and not
used as a declensional suffix. Hence *-x at this stage is to be
considered part of a noun stem. Example: We have *wodr and we might
refer to "waters" as *wodrx but both words are in fact the same
semantically and were declined the same at this stage, not as singular
versus plural.)

> That would have made the language much easier. Why would such a fine
> state be avoided by a deliberate act of language change? That is not
> being answered.

There are a lot of things in English that if dismissed would make
our language a whole bunch easier. Like that pesky the/a distinction.
I mean, really, who cares if a noun is definite or not?

>> 2. How can *-yex- show ablaut if it's not old
>
> But that presupposes that the function of *-yeH2- was not feminine
> when it was created. I have no objection to that - yet.

Ugh. It doesn't really. _You_ in fact presuppose that *-yex- existed
before its synthesis for a feminine. I'm in reality trying to get
across that *-ix is like a simple inanimate stem in *-i-, being given
an added *-x just simply to convey the feminine athematic. There
doesn't need to be a previously inanimate *-ix, if this bothers you so.
We wouldn't use *-x alone because this would just be the inanimate
collective from which thematic feminine *-ex was derived in the first
place.

>> 3. We never see *-ix/yex- as a collective marker
>>
>> So? Its individual components certainly were.
>
> Well, if that is suppposedly what it was made for, why does it never
> function that way? Surely this hangs completely in the air.

As per above: *-ix didn't exist prior to its use as a feminine.

>> 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.
>
> What did the "athem./them. system" do that was so important?

What does the definite/indefinite contrast in English do that's
all so important? For whatever reason, athematic and thematic
suffixes were not mixed up into a bag and randomly assigned
to both athematic and thematic stems alike. There was a difference
maintained. Why? That's a matter of psychology or sociology.
It's just what we see in IE so we have to accept it.

>> 5. Why *-ont-s versus feminine *-nt-ix
>>
>> Why not? What's really the issue here?
>
> The point has not been understood: There were feminines made to go
> with a masc. in *-o:n, not *-ont-s. That fem. form had the structure
> *-n.-iH2. The reshaping of the masc. form from *-o:n to *-ont-s,
> based on the participle of thematic verbs, must have occurred after
> the formation of the fem. in *-n.-iH2. Then it is very embarrassing
> that the reshaped form *-ont-s also appears in Anatolian.

Not at all. Anatolian simply keeps *-ont-s but there is no corresponding
feminine at the time. After Anatolian ditches the clubscene, *-ont-s
and *-o:n develop predictable feminines: *-nt-ix and *-n-ix. Simple.

>> 6. Origin of i-adjectives
>>
>> One consideration is Schwa Diffusion where *& became *i
>> pretonically.
>
> Not relevant for all the cases. Forms such as palhi- and salli- are
> indeed quite probably Caland variants and do not demonstrably have
> anything to do with the feminine. But the non-Anatolian
> correspondences of mekki- 'big' are not thematic, so in this case
> the other branches could only get an i-like morpheme in the
> feminine, and indeed have that.

I don't see how "other branches" show evidence for your analysis
_within_ Anatolian. Do you have something else from your bag o' tricks
that would add to this idea? Tell me why /mekki-/ must be singled
out from the other i-adjectives based on Anatolian evidence alone.

>> 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.
>
> A collective form expressly *avoiding* the neuter gender cannot be
> meant as a serious suggestion.

Well, there's always good ol' Caland where thematic stems are typically
animate.

>> 8. Doesn't /man/ 'when' and /mahhan/ 'as' reflect *mo-m & *me-x-m
>> just as Latin quom/quam similarly reflects?
>
> Latin has
> tum 'then'
> quom > cum 'when'
> tam 'so (much)'
> quam 'how (much), as (much)'.
>
> These forms can hardly be anything other than the accusatives of the
> masc. and fem., IE *tó-m, *táH2-m, *kWó-m, *kWáH2-m. What else could
> they be?

Yes, accusative makes sense here because the case is sometimes used
to refer to a moment "during which" or a place one is headed towards
with verbs like /i:re/, if I recall. Since Latin inherits the feminine,
and if we take your input that it once modified a masculine noun for
"time" and a feminine for "amount", that all makes sense.

However you're jumping the gun if you think that /quom/ and /quam/
are entirely identical to /ma:n/ and /mahhan/ when they don't even
have the same stem. Looking at what Miguel listed, one can't help
but notice that -an- does appear to be used to mark locatives
elsewhere and since these two words can conceivably be built on
locatives based on their semantics, I have a different idea on their
origin.

> I have seen no other way to account for this apparent evidence.

Sometimes people fail to see simply because they want to hold on
to old ideas that comfort them.


= gLeN