Jens:
> But there are many root nouns without length in monosyllabic forms: Lat.
> nex, prex, Gk. phlóks, phléps, Gk. voc. Zeu^. And if the rule is
> supposed to be a phonetic one that keeps you free of analogy which you
> ridicule so much every time you see a dose of it in any argumentation of
> mine, it ought to apply to other words than nouns also. Then verbal
> forms such as Ved. han (2sg *gWhén-s and 3sg *gWhén-t), the numeral
> *swék^s 'six', the adverb *g^hTyés 'yesterday', and pronominal forms like
> *tóm, *tód, *tóy are counterexamples too.
We're not talking about Latin and Greek. We're talking about Reconstructed
Indo-European so there's no point finding red herrings in daughter
languages that have already gone through so much change since IE. So I'll
only respond to the IE forms to keep focus on the relevant.
I've already explained that it is logical to reconstruct thematic vowels
for not only thematic duratives, but athematic duratives, aorists and
perfects as well in the pre-Syncope stage of IE. The durative should be
given *-e-, later becoming the alternating "thematic vowel", while aorists
and perfects should be given *-a-, the one that disappears without fanfare.
In my view, the athematic duratives are in part or in whole derived from
aorist forms that migrated to the durative paradigm.
In this way, we no longer need to contend with why such a pointless
difference between thematic and athematic stems developped. The _added_
advantage of a thematic vowel *-a- in these forms is the fact that the
athematic forms you cite lack lengthening, doubly ensuring us that these
forms were _disyllabic_ in MIE where I've already been reconstructing
*gwenas and *gwenat before this topic of length was brought up.
The numeral *sweks is from *sweksa. The final vowel before Syncope is
further justified by the Semitic form from which it derives where we
have *-u in its bare nominative form. Again, being disyllabic, it is
not expected to have had the lengthening.
The very fact that *dHgHyés begins with a cluster shows us clearly that
the word could never have been monosyllabic and therefore would never
have been lengthened.
The demonstratives like *ko- and *to- don't get lengthening because they
aren't major words of the sentence. They are placed before nouns typically.
We expect lengthening in monosyllabic nominal and verbal forms as well as
pronouns.
> Then what rule did the accent of Greek húdo:r obey?
The same rule as *wodr, with which the word is akin.
> Why am I unimpressed?
Isn't that your usual self? :)
> In what way is this a phonetic rule? Is it just the contrastive accent
> under another name?
I'm just saying that Acrostatic Regularization, a rule affecting the
accent of thematic _nouns_ only, is what caused the contrastive accent
between nouns and adjectives. Adjectives retained the genitival accent
because in a semantic sense they were still most connected to genitives
afterall.
> Oh sure: the -o- expressed adjectival function. If "[i]t's a small
> change from */newos ekwom/ "new horse" [...] to */newom ekwom/ (ie:
> *newo-m *ekwo-m)", it's an even smaller one from *newos *ek^wos to
> *newos *ek^wos. That even goes without analogy.
Exactly. It's in fact what I'm saying. The analogy starts with the
nominative and spreads to other cases of the noun once the adjective is
mistaken for a nominative that agrees with the noun that it modifies
rather than an undeclined genitive form as it once was. The nominative
is the default case afterall so my explanation is sound in every way
from start to finish.
> It is something we can see happening, so it does not matter how any of
> us feels about it.
No, I can see it happening only on a small-scale, not the way that you
appear to dramatize it, even despite some interesting facts you mention
about the use of subjunctives with *nu.
> So they violated markedness when they did it. Who cares? [...]
Sigh.
> [...] The facts are there. The Rigvedic combinations of subjunctive
> and nú/nú:/nu:nám actually are more frequently in the present aspect,
> but [...]
But nothing. The present remains the default form with the subjunctive
being marked. So I fail to see how any of this establishes that the
subjunctive forms migrated in droves to the present category in IE. I
think it's more like a largely irrelevant trickle at best.
> This is not necessarily relevant: The syllabic structure you observe
> for Uralic (assuming it is correct) is the result of a development, not
> its input.
Yes, I'm afraid you will have to except (regardless of your dreams of
what the "input" is) that Uralic had exclusively a CV(C) structure
according to knowledgeable Uralicists. The EA that you describe shows
nothing to me but phonotactics that are easily derivable from the state
Uralic was apparently in since EA shows nothing more than CV(C) with
the added permission of -CVCC at the end of a word. You don't want to
accept what we see in IE but a simple shift in accent position explains
the change of these simple syllable shapes to the ones that IE eventually
adopted replete with its unique mobile accent and consonant clusters. It
is by far the most optimal solution that respects phonotactics. Common
sense is common sense and Old Church Slavic just doesn't apply here.
> If there are no rules needed, no change can be assumed, and there was
> then no vowel to salvage your analysis.
If there are no rules needed? Is that how you get away with murder?
> If EA is Eskimo-Aleut, I am very surprised. Where does an *i mark plural
> in that branch?
It's been found by the comparison of Uralic and EA morphology that there
are too underlying morphemes, *-t- and *-i-, which alternate with each
other in paradigms. These same morphemes are found in IE as *-i- and
*-es. The former is found in pronominal stems like 1pp *wei.
>> > It is anybody's guess what *-oom is.
>>
>> The genitive plural of the Late IE period.
>
> You don't say? Well again, where did it come from? Oh yes, it was lying
> around.
Yes, it WAS lying around at the time. The genitive plural however was
established a little while earlier and was not originally a genitive.
I've already said that the genitive orginally did not mark plurality based
on the overall examination of the nominal paradigm. The genitive plural
derives from an originally locative meaning in fact.
= gLeN