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

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer <mcv@...> wrote:

> Perhaps. But it shows that thematicity is not a function of
> the root shape.

The more I investigate, the more it seems to me untenable to
hypothesize that there were any bi- or multi-syllabic roots that
preserved final vowels.

> No. In a compound stem like nom.sg. *h2ák^-mon-z (>
> *h2ák^mo:n), the root is *h2ak^-, the suffix is *-men-, and
> the desinence is *-z.

I see. I had looked up "desinence" in the MSN online dictionary, and
it said simply that it was a word ending.

As a side note, do you think that the *-men- ending is related to the
middle participial suffix, or just a coincidence?

> No, it's not compensatory lengthening. The vowel is
> lengthened even if the *-s remains (**pód-z > *pó:ds).

So in Vedic pa:t, the long /a/ is not from compensatory lengthening
due to loss of word-final /s/?

> There are in fact two rules:
>
> (1) V > V: /_C(C)z#
> (2) z > 0 / R_#,
>
> that do not necessarily go together.

What does "R_#" mean?

> Another question is the o-grade in the strong forms
> (*k^won-), which I derive from an old long vowel **a: (>
> *o). In my view, this is independent of the nominative
> lengthening, which is why the /o/ (short, of course) also
> appears in the accusative.

I had hypothesized that the o-vocalism came from the vowel preceding
a nasal, but now I'm not so sure. However, I'm not sure what else
could have caused it.

> In this case, the long vowel is simply a consequence of the
> morphology: compound nouns make their collective form by
> lengthening the suffix vowel and stressing it [+ a rule
> against two consecutive long vowels] (*wá:d-an > *wódr,
> coll. *wad-á:n > *udór+h2 > *udó:r).

Yet why would a word for 'dog' be a collective?

> In the case of standard proterodynamic nouns, the o-grade is
> caused by an automatic lengthening of the posttonic
> (svarita) syllable, _if_ the preceding syllable is light:
>
> *h2ák^-man-z > *h2ák^-ma:n-z > *h2ák^-mon-z > h2ák^-mo:n
> *h2ák^-man-m > *h2ák^-ma:n-m > *h2ák^-mon-m > h2ák^-mon-m.
> *h2ak^-mán-as > *h2ak^-mán-a:s > *h2k^-mén-os

What causes the automatic lengthening?

I think that the nominative and accusative suffixes were still
syllabic when initially added.

> Szemerényi lengthening occurs at this point (it *has* to be
> before zero grade, and also before the shortening of /o:/ in
> closed syllables), and a schwa affected by it lengthens to
> something that eventually turns up as /o:/:

Apologies for my ignorance, but what exactly is Szemerényi
lengthening?

- Rob