On Sun, 16 May 2004 11:52:59 +0000, elmeras2000
<
jer@...> wrote:
>The nominative plural of thematic declension was *-oy as preserved
>by pronouns. And the genitive to go with that was *-oy-s which,
>extended by *-o::m of other declensions, gave thee pronominal *-oy-s-
>o::m.
I like your other explanation (for the acc.pl., but
trivially extendable to the gen.pl.) better. Gen.pl. *-oy+m
> *-õm, Acc.pl. *-oy-+ms > *-o:ms, both extended from the
original acc/gen.pl. *-oy by borrowing suffixes from the
athematic declension.
In the pronouns, the oblique *-ey/*-oy often became a
nominative (as is normal in pronouns), replacing the old
nominative, which was *-esW/*-osW (the former still in *mesW
"we", *yusW "you"; the latter perhaps in Ved. -a:sas <
*-osW+esW).
New forms had therefore to be created to replace the old
acc/gen in *-ey/*-oy, and different methods were used:
In the thematic nouns we have:
nom. *-oy or *-õs (< *-o + -esW)
acc. *-oy + -ms > *-o:ms
gen. *-oy + -m > *-õm
(other oblique forms also built on *-oy-)
In the non-personal pronouns we have:
nom. *-ey *-oy
acc. *-i-ms *-oy-ms > *-o:ms
gen. *-ey-s-om *-oy-s-om
(analogically: *-ey-s-õm, *-oy-s-õm)
(other oblique forms also built on *-ey-/*-oy-).
Personal pronouns:
nom. *-ey *wey, *swey
*-esW *mesW, *jusW
obl. *-mé *n.s-mé, *us-mé, *s-mé
also: *nos, *wos, (*swos)
The elements *-m and *-ms were borrowed from the athematic
declension, where the original forms had been something
like:
nom. *-abhu > *-ém, *-om, *-m
obl. *-abhi > *-ém, *-om, *-m
(cf. pronominal *-atu > *-esW/*-osW, *-ati > *-ey/*-oy).
The nominative ending, which would have fallen together with
the oblique, was replaced by pronominal *-es(W) [affixed to
the singular "strong" form], the forms in *-m/*-bhi- were
maintained as obliques. In the gen.pl., the ablaut variant
*-om was generalized. The acc.pl. generalized the ablaut
variant *-m, with the addition of plural *(e)sW, to
distinguish it from singular *-m (especially when in part of
the IE area the acc.pl. analogically became a strong case,
i.e. identical to the acc.sg. + *-s). The resulting forms
are:
nom. (strong) *-esW (*h2ák^-mon-esW)
acc. (strong) *-m-s (*h2ák^-mon-m-s)
(weak) *-m-s (*h2k^-mén-m-s)
gen. (weak) *-om (*h2k^-mén-om)
oblique (super-weak) *-bhy- (*h2k^-mn-bhy-ó-sW etc.),
where *-m-/*bhy- is derived from the old pl. oblique
morpheme, and *-(e)s(W) is the pronominal (non-oblique)
plural marker.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...