On Mon, 12 Jul 2004 00:12:36 +0000, elmeras2000
<
jer@...> wrote:
>> I still think that's a nicer explanation, than
>> one in which some suffixes are, for some unknown reason,
>> vowelless, and others not.
>
>Why should there be given reasons for the different shapes of the
>suffixes? The linguistic sign is arbitrary.
The reason is that I like to think of these suffixes as
erstwhile independent words. I can see how desinences may
have no underlying vowel, but if suffixes were once separate
words, I'd expect them to always have an underlying vowel.
This is of course just an impression of mine, subject to
revision, and it's hard to offer solid proof of why suffixes
must once have been independent words. The best argument is
perhaps that it's the suffix, after all, which carries the
case endings. This is perfectly understandable if deriving
from Gruppenflexion of a noun phrase consisting of two
independent entities: the root and the suffix.
>> Shouldn't that be *H1n.H3-mn-ós?
>
>Oh no, the stem ends in -C-mn, whence *-C-men already in the lexical
>form; the addition of a syllabic inflectional morpheme *-os causes
>the accent to move onto the next vowel, which is here the anaptyctic
>vowel of *-men-. The form is reflected in OIr. anmae, und underlies
>Ved. -manas. In the Ved. man-stems it is only the instr.sg. that
>reduces the cluster -mn-, so the genitive and the dative certainly
>had full grade in the suffix *-mén-s, *-mén-ey.
The G. and D. are given as na:mnah. and na:mne: in an online
source, the reference for which I cannot find now.
Greek (onoma, onomatos) only has weak forms of the suffix
(*-mn.(t)-), but that's normal in Greek, just like it's
normal for Slavic to only have strong forms (imen-, like
mater-).
The Armenian oblique is anuan, which can only go back to
*&no(:)-mn.-.
Old Irish G. anm(a)e is, according to Thurneysen, derived
from *&nme:s < *h1nh3-men-s. But that is not an acceptable
PIE form in my "algebra". I can accept *h1nh3ménos (like
*h2ak^ménos), or *h1nh3mn.(n)ós. A form *h1nh3ménts also
works, but then so does a completely zero-grade *h1nh3mn.ts
(cf. Grk. onomatos < *h1nh3mn.t-), with -e as in
*wi(:)k^m.ts > fiche.
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...