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

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

> 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.

If I may make an observation here...

The thing with *xnérs 'man' vs. *xnéres 'men' is that there's no
difference in accentuation. I think this must mean that the plural *-
es must have been added after the main changes in stress-accent.

Another thing: according to Greenberg (et al.?), the normal form is
stem + plural + case. This is the reverse of what we find in PIE,
where the accusative plural ending is *-m-s -- that is, case +
plural. Is it possible that it was earlier *-(e)s-m with metathesis?

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

[snip]

Let me make sure of something: Szereményi Lengthening is lengthening
of a (stem-final) (nominal?) vowel before a resonant, correct?
Excuse my ignorance, but are there any counterexamples to the
hypothesis that this is not compensatory lengthening due to loss of
nominative *-s after a resonant? It just seems to me that there is a
pattern: in athematic nouns with stem-final resonants, there is no
sigmatic nominative (so-called "Nominative Loss") *and* there is
lengthening of the stem-final vowel. Common sense would say that
these things are related (somehow).

> 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?

Perhaps the sigmatic nominative wasn't in the nominative plural?

> 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.

As I stated above, perhaps the nominative plural suffix *-es was
added after the accent-attraction processes had stopped.

> > 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.

This should really be in another thread, but it seems to me that the
*-es's in *treyes and *kWetwores are the nominative plural suffix.
That means that the earlier numeral forms were **trei and **kWetwor,
respectively. I also suspect that the *-r or *-or (or maybe even the
whole *-wor) in *kWetwor(es) is another suffix.

> 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.

I'm sorry, but I'm confused about the root for "to build" vs. the one
for "to tame." Which one is *demh2-?

- Rob