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

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, enlil@... wrote:

> Me:
> > This is of course completely nuts, unnecessary and

overcomplicated.

> > MIE *-es (inheirited from Proto-Steppe *-it as attested in

Uralic,

> > Altaic, EskimoAleut and Tyrrhenian) is simply expected to be **-

&s

> > in eLIE after Syncope but there's a reason why it didn't.
>
> Jens:
> > Perhaps it is, but then it should be noted that the language
> > *accidentally* behaves in such a way that a derivation of its
> > nominative plural from a morphologically regular underlying form
> > marking the nominative and the plural in the same order as the
> > accusative plural would be in full compliance with the same rules
> > that are found to produce morphological regularity in the rest of
> > the language. Appearances may be deceitful, but this resembles a
> > miracle.
>
> Can you elaborate further. I don't quite follow what you're trying
> to say.

You do know what I mean. We have been over this more than once
already.

The nom.pl. of *H2ner- 'man' is *H2nér-es. Why is that? Ní h-ansae.
We expect stem + case marker + plural marker, which is certainly
what we have in the accusative plural ending in *-m-s. That leads to
*-s-s. Since I am not sure the two sibilants were identical I write
them with an arbitrary difference, say, *-z-c.

From the protoform thus tentatively posited as *H2nér-z-c we expect
the following developments by the rules already accepted:

1. Lengthening caused by the nominative sibilant: *H2nér-z-c >
*H2né:rzc.

2. Shortening before -CC-s (final cluster of two consonants +
sibilant), perhaps with the additional proviso that it contains the
sibilant marking the nominative. That changes *H2né:rzc back into
*H2nérzc.

3. Reduction of sibilant clusters to /s/ would give *H2nérs. Now,
that is not the form to be explained, *H2néres is. So we need an
added rule:

2a. Insertion of /e/ in *C_ss# That changes *H2nérzc into *H2nérezc,
from which rule 3 now make the desired output *H2néres.

This could not be achieved if there was already a vowel before the
final consonant of the nominative plural before the ablaut worked.
So I say there wasn't, and then the form is regular. The rule by
which it is regular is ad hoc, however, but that cannot be helped
I'm afraid. Where do I go check what the proper output of stem-final
consonant + nominative marker + plural marker is?

An imprtant point in it all is of course that the nominative plural
is a strong case which never shows a vowel and never attracts the
accent. That fact is honoured by the lack vowel in the underlying
form I posit.

>
> Jens:
> > There is no vowel in the plural marker of Eskimo-Aleut which

adds *-

> > d (dental spirant) directly to the stem.
>
> That's right, everything's normal. The plural in ProtoSteppe was
> *-it overall, while *-t after vowel-ending stems. [...]

I don't care about Steppe and all that. I meant to warn against
using a widespread fallacy concerning Eskimo-Aleut, the plural
marker of which is certainly underlyingly *-d (voiced dental
spirant) without a preceding vowel, even after stem-final consonants.

> > So you accept the form as *irregular* because regular sound

change

> > would have disturbed the morphology? Why did this also happen in
> > words that have no singular, like *tréyes 'three',

*kWétwores 'four'?

>
> There is no way I can think of of making IE *-es a regular outcome

of

> *-it. It should be **-os. It is inevitably irregular. Hopefully we

agree

> on this.

As shown it can relatively easily be the regular nominative plural.

> The problem is how to give adequate motivation for this
> irregularity while keeping things as simple as possible. I believe

I've

> done just that.

I don't.

> Your last question here is moot. The plural came to be *-es in

nouns

> with singulars and thus spread to all other forms. I'm not

convinced

> that there wasn't *treis and *kWetwors at some point in the past
> either. We see *-s in the accusative plural *-ms anyway.

It could have helped you by showing that the facts you consider
matter, but it did not do that. The idea could still be correct, but
then without the support it might have had.

> > The facts of IE are the relevant ones. And unfortunately only

*dom-

> > /*dém-s shows lack of a laryngeal, while all verbal forms have it
> > where it can show.
>
> Yes, an extension *-x- would be the culprit. This makes everything
> expected and regular.

The alleged "extension" does not meet any expectations I can see.
Rather, a house is a building, and "building" would be one of the
meanings expected for a root noun of this type.

> > It rather seems that roots are neutral as to verbal voice. Vedic
> > vá:c- 'word' or 'voice', dvís.- 'hatred' or 'enemy'.
>
> So there would be little point in adding a modal suffix like *-x-

to

> *domos, would there.

Right, and there is no reason to believe it was done.

Jens