Miguel:
> Oh come on. It's essentially Jens' theory. Rob, like Jens
> and myself, has the common sense to recognize that there was
> only _one_ suffix *-mVn- (or *-tVr-), which developed in two
> different ways according to the accent. None of that
> nonsense about two different suffixes.
After thinking about it some more, I developped a more optimal
solution. Both *-me:n and *-mo:n develop from the same suffix
*-mén-s/*-m&n-s depending on accent, yes. Also then, *-te:r and
*-to:r simply from *-tér-s/*-t&r-s. Both *-m&n-s and *-t&r-s
however still develop from inanimate *-mn and *-tr during the
Thematicization period but I abolish a now non-existent MIE
**-era as part of the spring cleaning with only an inanimate
agent *-an left in MIE. There is afterall no outside etymology
for **-era anyways and is perhaps unmotivated in MIE itself,
so there is little damage caused by this change of thinking.
In that way now, we're all pretty much on the same side with
the differences lying in vocalism and the proper sound changes.
Thematicization is still too wide a pattern to be non-existent
since it would cover the development of the following:
*-mn => *-mén-/-m&n- > *-mén-/*-mon-
*-tr => *-tér-/-t&r- > *-tér-/*-tor-
*-wr => *-wér-/-w&r- > *-wér-/*-wor-
*-l => *-él- /-&l- > *-él- /*-ol-
*-x => *-éx- /-&x- > *-éx- /*-ex-
However, thinking on *-hén-/-hon-, I'm scratching my head trying
to find an inanimate version *-hn. Is there one? I'm betting there
wasn't and that it was a fossilized remnant of a noun *(?)en-s
meaning something to the effect of "person". Anybody?
> In the accusative, that is not possible. We would expect
> the unstressed variants to have *-mn-m. (*-tr-m.) instead of
> attested *-mon-m. (*-tor-m.). Jens explains this as analogy
> after the nominative (with a handful of "original"
> accusatives preserved, such as Old Persian pathim (<
> *pónth2m.)).
You're mad. Nothing is motivated by this complexity. Rather,
*-m&n-m transparently becomes *-mon-m since *& lengthens before
the following *n as already theorized by Jens himself (with a
few modifications of my own, of course) and *-mén-m transparently
becomes... drum roll please... *-mén-m. The very oscillation of
*& and *é underlying the vocalic difference of the two is also
perfectly explained as the simple and regular accent-dependent
ablaut we see everywhere else. My explanation I'm afraid is so
boring and regular it even bores me.
So don't rack your brain, eh. What would be really interesting
is whether Rob is gonna believe your nonsense or not but I already
can predict the answer to that.
= gLeN