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

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Rob" <magwich78@...> wrote:

> It seems that the 'house' root is tricky indeed. How do you

explain

> the contrast between e- and o-vocalism?
>
> > 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.
>
> Here is my line of reasoning. First, I presume that the Kurgan
> culture was indeed the "original" speakers of PIE. They spread
> outward from their homeland and subjugated other areas due to
> superior military technology and/or tactics (I have read that most

of

> the (especially European) pre-IE cultures appear to have been non-
> warlike). Then they imposed their language on the inhabitants;
> however, the inhabitants, probably having spoken a rather

different

> language, could not speak PIE perfectly. Their 'reflexes' to the
> original language comprise much (if not most) of the IE 'reflexes'

to

> PIE.
>
> If all of this is the case, then all that one must further assume

is

> that (most of) the substratum languages had stress accent.
>
> > 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.
>
> This is also very reasonable to me.
>
> For words such as *wlkWos, which do not readily suggest an

adjectival

> origin, perhaps its original meaning was something like 'howling
> one.' What, then, drove the re-placement of the accent? Do you
> think that it had something to do with the analogical adj.-to-

subst.

> backward accent shift?
>
> > 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.
>
> Hmm. First of all, I have a question: did PIE recognize a

difference

> between /kW/ (a labialized velar stop) and /kw/ (plain velar stop
> followed by a labial approximant)? From what I have read, it

seems

> possible to distinguish between the two.
>
> That having been said, did PIE *kWo-/kwo- > L ca-? There are many
> Latin words (verbal and nominal) that have a-vocalism where e-
> vocalism is expected based on the reconstructed PIE etymologies.
>
> > 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.
>
> Interesting. Is it also possible that the L -is genitive resulted
> from a contamination with i-stems? There was some confusion

between

> root nouns and i-stems, with nom./acc. pl. -e:s becoming shared
> between the two (the nom. pl. from the i-stems, acc. pl. from root
> nouns). Also cf. root noun dat./abl. pl. -ibus for expected -bus
> (e.g. regibus instead of regbus).
>
> - Rob