Jens:
> Nothing is easier: *-e-s is the 2sg secondary ending of thematic
> verbs only.
It doesn't really matter whether you speak of the plural *-es or
2ps *-es. The reason being that the very fact that you feel the
need to propose a new phoneme **z is your theory's failure in the
very beginning. Yes, 2ps *-es is a better example than plural *-es
though no doubt, just not effective.
What you need to address is how a z-allophone of *s is actually
"weaker" and why a _new phoneme_ is the only answer. So far,
everything that you say can be replaced by an allophone of *s
in all those positions and still yield the same results. It's a
small change but one that doesn't present the problems that your
theory automatically presents, such as the fact that **z would
evidently be rare yet too ironically common as it would be the most
commonly used suffix (ie: nominative) in IE! That simply makes no
sense. With the z-allophone, we merely see *s in all stages, and
it frankly makes sense why *-s, one of the most common phonemes to
begin with in IE, would be used to create the most common suffix.
> I see no grounds on which this could be questioned.
My solution with the more optimal z-allophone is the basis for the
question. It solves questions that your theory doesn't address
properly like that of the above while still acknowledging the
alternation of *e/*o as indicative of original voicing of *s.
> So thematic nominative *-o-s and thematic 2sg *-e-s form a minimal
> pair quite some time back,
Yes, but that doesn't guarantee that it is so in IE itself nor
does this guarantee that *-s in both cases is anything other than
*-s with allophonic variety.
Since you're so keen on minimal pairs, you should present one that
WOULD be of relevance to this debate. One with two instances of
_*-os_ where one must in reality be *-oz and the other *-os.
Ironically, it's the fact that you use the thematic vowel differences
as evidence for voicing that makes it impossible, based on that alone,
that this is anything more than allophonic voicing of *-s! For all we
know, we may have *-os [-oz] and *-es [-es] in the final stage before
fracturing. If the **z is predictable in these environments as you
seem to contradictively suggest, it sounds like an allophone to me.
It looks like the z-allophone of *-s can be expected after *o 100%
of the time.
So your minimal pair proves allophony, not a new phoneme.
> Read Brugmann.
Reminds me of the Jehovah's Witness elders that spoke to me when
I was 18 and "losing my religion". The ones who, not being able to
answer my straightforward questions on the paradox of Creation and
God, told me to read such and such publication because in truth they
didn't have the answers themselves and because they needed to leave
before I frightened them further with my astute analyses. I almost
got them questioning, but faith can be strong and irrational.
> It is somewhat embarrassing to the theory of *-t > *-d that there
> is not a single example of fusion with a following enclitic that
> has retained the old phonetic value /t/ in the sheltered position
> offered by the enclitic.
Yes there is: The 3rd person indicative *-t-i. We know that the
3ps derives from demonstrative *ta based on common sense. So this
means that non-indicative *-t was levelled by *-ti. We see a clear
pattern where a morpheme *-t on its own NEVER occurs. We only see
*-t when it is optionally suffixed with a further suffix. So with
inanimate *-d we never see an animate suffix *-d occuring medially...
Well, except in this "idem" example of yours...
However, you failed to display the reconstructed version in _IE_.
Is it *id-dem or does such a form in reality not exist. At any
rate, it must be a compound and an irregular one at that since
we see /ea-dem/ and /is-dem/ too showing clearly that /idem/ was
never a single word in IE itself unless one throws away what we
know of IE grammar.
So just like the **meg-ox- pretense, you created another pseudoexample
in order to avoid accepting common sense.
> Your chronological order is of course the one that must be assumed
> for your theory to escape being contradicted.
??? Yes, duh! Why would you impose a wrong one on it to make it wrong?
Similarly, why would you take the current theories on Proto-Slavic and
jumble the order of its sound changes around to prove it wrong??!
This looks like confirmed proof that you're senseless.
> There is no independent motivation for it. But it just *is* possible,
> if one is willing to accept the amount of levelling it entails
There is levelling in any theory including what we know of Proto-Slavic,
so what. There isn't alot of levelling. Some of the issues raised prior
concerning thematic nouns has now been resolved since I now accept
that some thematic nouns survived Syncope through the Suffix Resistance
rule.
> (I write the thematic vowel as -E- this time):
>
> 2sg -E-s -E-s-i
> 3sg -E-t -E-t-i ; this gave:
Blah, blah, I wrote my ACTUAL theory in another post answering Richard's
query and the correct order in which the sound changes function properly
without the hyperlevelling that you try to psychotically infuse into it
by misrepresenting the theory. You're mad.
If you can pay attention this time, the expected thematic vowel /&./
by the time of Schwa Diffusion against neighbouring voiced consonants
is changed ever so slightly to /e/ in the non-indicative to match
the indicative. The change is so slight that this proposal is hardly
as contraversial as your warped version of it pretends it to be.
> The change *-E-d > *-o-d is as in the neuter nom.-acc. of pronouns.
> No use doubting that you posit that.
Well I don't. As I said, the analogical change of -&s [-&.z] to
-es [-ez] based on the indicative *-esi [-esi] explains what happened
and the same change occurs in the 3ps which can only have come from
the demonstrative *ta. On a Nostratic note, there is no correlative
suffix in Uralic or Altaic that matches IE *-t which shows that it
is a later innovation within IE itself. Rather, Uralic shows *-sa,
its own innovation, when it even has a suffix on the 3ps at all and
this can only be sensibly related to MIE *sa (> *so "this").
Without accepting this analogical levelling of the thematic vowel
in the 2p and 3p singular, you distort the origins of the suffixes
to the point that they have no etymology at all. They just beam
out of thin air at some point into PreIE from an alien mothership.
No, the analogical levelling is vital here to allow everything to
make sense. That way *-t is just from an eLIE demonstrative *ta, with
an unmarked 3ps in the older layer, and 2ps *-s is a sibilantized
Proto-Steppe *-t, a "clipped" version of the pronoun *tu. Finally,
since *-o-s [-o-z] only shows allophonic voicing, we still explain
the phenomena you note while keeping its connection with Uralic *sa
and eLIE *sa (> *so) while even explaining the odd pattern of the
*to-paradigm to boot.
Your theory doesn't explain anything and pleads "ignorance" all the
time. Well if you're so ignorant of the way PreIE worked, then don't
bother reconstructing it.
> We see that the secondary forms have been completely replaced by the
> corresponding parts of the primary forms. That could well be right,
> as far as it goes. There is a problem though in the assumption that
> the primary *-i offers a shelter for word-final changes. It does not
> do that when it follows a locative. We find loc. *é-i, and *-en-i of
> r/nt-stems, both with distinctly word-final treatment of the part
> preceding the *-i.
So? It's because *-n- is the ancient non-nominoaccusative version of
*-r in the heteroclitic paradigm for _all_ weak cases. The locative was
applied very late (supported further by the piecemeal attestation of it
and the equally late dative in Anatolian). The locative *-i probably
became used much later than the indicative in *-i.
Is it any wonder then that *-n- would be adopted based on the genitive
and other cases. In fact, I don't even think that the forms in *-n-i
were necessarily based on anything other than a previous _endingless_
locative in plain *-n. Thus the locative of eLIE *wadr would have been
*udén just as the genitive was *udnás at this stage. But such a
construct is not necessary to explaining *n here anyways given the
other weak case forms invariably in *-n-.
> Word-final voicing is not at all a common change, while the opposite
> is very common.
It doesn't necessarily have to be "voicing". They may be 'tenuis'
allophones instead, pronounced longer or without aspiration which
later would be replaced with voiced sounds. Thus *-o-s [-os:] > [-oz]
and *-o-d [-ot:] > [-od].
Doesn't matter.
= gLeN