Re: [tied] Bader's article on *-os(y)o

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:

> Again, I simply don't know. There is the ace-in-the-hole
> labelled "contrastive accent" which is certainly a fact: Throughout
> its known history, IE has created substantivized variants of
> adjectives by retracting the accent (and adjectivized variants of
> substantives by advancing it). That can lead to forms like Greek
> thánatos 'death' which reflects accent on the sonant nasal of *-nH2-
> , while the old participle thne:tós 'dead' has kept the expected
> unaccented *-nH2- > -na:-. I have guessed that the IE tu-stems are
> properly barytone substantival variants of the oxytone to-
> participles, and that -u- is originally a weakened thematic vowel,
> while later forms made no such change any more. There appear to be
> many layers in this, and it is very easy to make mistakes.

Yes, I have read about that. Do you have any idea what caused
the "contrastive accent" to come about?

- Rob