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

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

> Keep'm comin', Rob.

Thanks.

> That saddens my heart. I think we need no more than a rule
> about "stem-final vowels". When final in a stem IE vowels act the
> way the thematic vowels do, they *are* thematic vowels. We do not
> have to be concerned with their origin which we most cannot unravel
> any more than we can motivate that one root noun ends in /d/,
> another in /p/.

What I should have said was "I agree that the *alternations* of
thematic vowels have different origins in verbs from those in nouns."

I agree that wherever thematic vowels occur, they are the result of
stem-final vowels.

> Only if you are talking thematic. In athematic paradigms there is *-
> mé:n vs. *´-mo:n just as there is *-té:r vs. *´-to:r. If you *are*
> talking thematic, you are comparing the allomorphy of thematic

verbs

> with that of thematic nouns and pronouns. I believe it has been
> proved to everyone's satisfaction that the rules are basically the
> same, and that the regular forms are widely retained in verbs and
> pronouns, and less so in nouns. Thematic nouns are o-stems and show
> much more /o/ that would be expected on the basis of the rules
> observed in the verbs and pronouns, but even nouns have e-relics,
> and they all conform to the rules of verbs and pronouns: The word-
> final *-e is like the imperative *-e, and the fem.-collective *-e-

H2

> (> *-a-H2) is like the 1sg middle sec. *-e-H2, prim. *-e-H2-i (> *-

a-

> H2, *-a-H2-i) which must underlie Greek -oma:n and -omai (with -om-
> from the active), Skt. -e.

*-té:r vs. *´-to:r (**-térs vs. **´-tors) agrees with my conjectures
so far, but *-mé:n vs. *´-mo:n (**-méns vs. **´-mons) does not. It
is likely I will have to amend my hypothesis that only *o can exist
before a nasal. However, why does verbal thematic *o only exist
before nasals and nowhere else? Furthermore, why do the pairs above
exist at all? Being syllabic suffixes, one would think that they
would *always* be accented.

About *h2ak^mons (> Gk. akmo:n) 'stone': Why would 'stone' be an
animate noun?

> I do not think there is any such pattern in IE verbal morphology.
> The unextended root *bhewg- was used an an aorist stem, its present
> being originally of the nasal infixing kind, and secondarily either
> of the ye/o-suffix structure (Lat. fugio:); also secondarily the
> aorist subjunctive became a present, as Gk. pheúgo:. This brings it
> into line with the material of the other language, and of the other
> verbs.

So then Mr. Gasiorowski is in error?

> I would assume that all of this is just as old as the short forms

of

> the root aorist and the root present. It just expressed functional
> shadings which have only been retained to varying degrees in
> dufferent branches and have therefore been open to many
> misinterpretations, especially by scholars apparently in desperate
> need of a quick high profile.

According to Sihler (1995), the prefix *e- was a particle in PIE.

> *bhér-e-ti (1sg *bhéro: if you ask me) is a classic example of an
> aorist subjunctive turned present indicative. There is nothing
> mysterious or late about it, except for its new function.

Not to change the subject, but what do you think is the origin of the
1sg *-o: ending?

> The general explanation of this, which I accept, is that it
> reflects old root aorists which of course had ablaut, so that e.g.
> the 3pl would be *bhug-ént. Adjusted to the thematic classes with
> 3pl in *-o-nt this then gave rise to a type with zero-grade +
> accented -é-/-ó-.

How did that happen? Also, are there any historical attestations of
*bhugént?

> For a few verbs, as *wid-é-t 'saw', *H1ludh-é-t 'ascended' this

form

> had been reached already before the disintegration of the
> protolanguage.

What about forms like *e-we-wkW-é-t 'said'?

> The constant accentuation of the root of the acrostatic paradigms

is

> in my opinion the effect of a regular change moving the accent to
> the first full vowel of every single word. The rule worked *after*
> the ablaut reduction proper, so that any pretonic *short* vowels

had

> been lost, this leaving only short pretonic vowels as the results

of

> reduction of vowels that were originally long. The long vowel of

the

> strong forms of these paradigms retain the long root vowel as I see
> it. There was no *regularization* of acrostatic paradigms whose
> forms are well enough accounted for by the phonetic rules that have
> to be posited anyway.

Hmm. That would seem to explain the
acrostatic/hysterokinetic/proterokinetic distinction. What do you
think motivated the change? But *wlkWos, like Glen said, had stress
on the first (that is, the *zero-grade*) syllable. What happened
there?

> This may be fatal to the theory: If new phonological rules are
> posited they should apply to the whole language, especially the
> parts of it that *must* have existed at the time.

Your theory, or mine?

> It must be a matter of morphology. If new coinings became thematic
> simply by virtue of their number of consonants, this should have
> changed the words already existing in the language already.
> Therefore, the "thematic craze", which is above dispute, must
> reflect the generalization of a morphological pattern already in
> existence. It is plain to see that the verbs had the *kWér-e-ti
> structure alreday as that of subjunctives. So some subjunctives
> became present indicatives (generally aorist subjunctives becoming
> presents), and newly formed presents copied that structure. There
> can be no *phonetic* change from athematic to thematic. In the

noun,

> many adjectival formations with thematic suffixes had been
> substantivized by simple semantic change, so that new nouns could

be

> formed using these structures, again without phonetic change of one
> to the other.

Okay, I can see this being possible. However, I think the theory of
aorist subjunctives becoming presents is debatable.

> There is the root of Lat. liqueo:, liquidus, OIr. fliuch, Welsh
> gwlyb 'wet' which must be *wleykW-.

Hmm. Is that the only one?

> None of this happened where there *were* three consonants: Ved.

stem

> in -aN (velar nasal, acc.-añcam), Avest. -a,s^. (nasal a +

retroflex

> shibilant) from *-onk-s or the participles in *-nt-s. The classical
> example of root nouns has long been Schindler's *H2wólk-s 'furrow'
> which is allowed no existence here.

Hmm. Is *H2wólk-s attested in Greek and/or Latin? The examples you
gave do shed a different light on things.

> If that were a phonetic change it should have hit also lexicalized
> archaic forms which cannot have been formed later. That is not the
> case: *nókWt-s, *mléwH-m/-s/-t (Skt. ábravi:m, -i:s, -i:t), even
> *dé:yk^st 'pointed out'. Root nouns ending in *-wid-s may have as
> many as five underlying consonants without inserting a thematic
> vowel. The thematic vowel is not epenthetic in origin.

Okay, I just got an idea -- it may be a crazy one, but here it is.
What if the *nókWt-s reconstruction is wrong? What if it was
actually *nókWs/nókWt-? That is, the final *-t became *-s just as
with the 2sg marker? However, assuming a *n-kW-t root-shape, the
expected form would be *nakWáta > *n@...@ > *nkWát > *nkWet (>
*nkWes ?). That is hardly what we see. Another possibility is that
the *-t was a suffix, so the original root-shape was simply *n-kW.
Perhaps then, *nakWa > *nákW@ > *nakW. Then *nakW ta > *nakW-ta >
*nákWta > *nákWt@ > *nákWt. However, it seems that the *a would have
had to be long to explain the o-vocalism. Anyways, just some
thoughts.

> This is surely right, if only safely in the more careful
> wording "adjectives of belonging". There are strong reasons to
> believe that the thematic vowel has nothing to do with the -o- of
> then genitive ending *-os.

The *-tó/-nó/-ró suffixes must have had different, though perhaps
(probably?) similar, meanings. I have read that the *-tó suffix was
a "verbal collective" or something similar.

- Rob