--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Rob" <magwich78@...> wrote:
> The *do:m form is reasonable to me. Earliest form *dáma, giving
> *dám@ > *dam. Vowel quality fixed at /o/ since it precedes a
nasal.
> Original genitive (later ergative, then nominative) *dam sa >
*dáms@
> > *dams > *doms. Loss of *-s after a nasal with compensatory
> lengthening: *doms > *do:m.
I have seen some of this before from other corners. That gives the
opportunity to ask you how the original form "*dáma" is motivated.
Why has it been given exactly this form? The vowel /o/ can hardly be
ascribed to the following /m/, given the genitive is *dém-s. If you
posit gen. *dom-s instead, an account of Gk. despóte:s should be
given, for that was a major pillar of the etymology in the first
place.
[...]
> Something to think about: Perhaps there were two stages of accent
in
> PIE. The first stage was a stress accent -- this is where the
> syncope occurred. The second stage was a tonic accent, which gave
> rise to most of the Ablaut distinctions.
That's the classical doctrine of Hirt and his friends. It does not
explain the survival of a stress accent to this day. I have posted
an integrated account somewhere on this list. It falls into place if
it is acknowledged that the IE accent had both stress prominence and
high tone.
> Another possibility: Much is made from the contrast between o-
grade
> root-accented thematic nouns and ending-accented thematic nouns.
I
> suspect that one or the other is original and the other is a later
> innovation.
Sure, in cases where the accent is contrastive it will be relatively
safe to assume that.
> Logic says that, since "original" thematic nouns have
> initial accent, the ending-accented ones must be later.
That's a strange place to begin. There are two sets of "nouns",
substantives and adjectives. Basically, substantives have root
accent, while adjectives have suffixal accent. That may have come
about by regular accent advancement to an added thematic vowel
deriving an adjectival form from a substantive. The opposite
derivation, from adj. to subst. by backward accent shift, will then
be analogical.
[...]
> A better riddle is to try to figure out where Latin canis fits
into
> all of this.
I find Schrijver's account (Lar. in Lat. 461) most appealing:
Parallel with a number of cases showing vo > va in Latin, this may
be seen as based on the stem of the acc.sg. *k^won-m. > *kwon-em >
*kwan-em, whence can-em due to adjustment of the initial
consonantism to the nom. *k^wo: > *kwo: > *ko:, itself later
replaced by the backformation canis.
> Furthermore, how the Latin root noun genitive singular -
> is (presumably from *-es) can be reconciled with everything else.
My guess may be appalling to some: I suggest that *-es is the old
ablative, *-os the old genitive, and that they shared the zero-grade
*-s. None of the forms can be dismissed: *-es is demanded by Balto-
Slavic, Germanic and Latin, while *-os is demanded by Greek, Celtic
and Tocharian (Anatolian may be disputed, but rather belongs here).
Old Latin has some cases of -us reflecting *-os also, but there
appears to be sensible distribution of *-os and *-es even in the
oldest records, so it is of little use. Among the languages choosing
*-os, Greek has the adverb pres- in prés-bys/-gys 'old man, envoy'
(supported by Arm. erêc' 'oldest man, priest'), and Celtic reflects
*tares and *tres for 'across', These are loca adverbs, so it is
reasonable to assume that, of the two, it is *-es that reflects a
local case. Then Mycenaean <-e> in placenames meaning 'from' could
simply reflect a surviving IE consonant-stem ablative *-es.
Jens