Re: [tied] Re: Some thoughts...

On 04-10-02 00:38, enlil@... wrote:

> I can't take it anymore! :) I have to object.

That's the spirit! Where would we be without disagreement?

> Naturally, the locative is *-i in IE and for the longest time I thought
> that it was created relatively late in the language. However there's
> nothing about my formulation of QAR and the like that says necessarily
> that this is so. I merely assumed so because of the unmarked locatives.
> I figured the simpler form might be the older one.
>
> To the contrary, as I'm exploring the wonderful world of translation (or
> rather, "re-translation") in Etruscan, I can't help but notice the
> commonality of the locative *-i even in Tyrrhenian languages as well.
> In Etruscan we find /-i/ or /-e/ and it's part of the dative suffix
> /-si/ (genitive -s + locative -i) also found in Lemnian.
>
> Tyr *-i is figured in Etruscan, Lemnian, Eteo-Cypriot, and even Minoan
> (A-SA-SA-RA-ME = Assaram-e "with Asherah"). It's important to note that
> there are clear correlations between the Tyrrhenian and IE case systems
> involving the accusative (/tn/ 'that' = *tom), genitive (/-s/ = *-os)
> and inessive ending (/-tHi/ 'in' = *dHi). So adding the locative *-i to
> this list of IndoTyrrhenian case suffixes isn't far-fetched.
>
> If this is so, there must have been a coexistence of both a locative in
> *-i and an unmarked one in earlier forms of IE.

Right, but still *-i seems to have been some kind of optional enclitic
rather than an obligatory case ending. Anyway, I didn't say anything
about the loc.sg. ending, which is certainly *oi < *-o-i; I only
wondered whether the *-oi- part of *-oisu should be analysed in the same
way. There is some evidence (already discussed) that the morpheme order
STEM-CASE-PLURAL is late, and that pre-PIE had the reverse order:
STEM-PLURAL-CASE.

>>I'd analyse it as regular *-o:s (from *-oD-z) [...]
>
>
> Why is *-oD-z preferable over *-o- + *-es again? It doesn't even have to
> be phonetically *-o-es either. We can go straight to *-o:s by analogy
> with the singular *-o-s and athematic stems in *-es without an intermediate
> like **-o-(?)es.

I'm just trying to see one underlying pattern behind that incredible
mess we call the dual/plural case endings. My "grand unification" may be
fundamentally wrong (like Einstein's attempts during the last 40 years
of his life), but at least I hope to keep the ball rolling, so here's my
tentative proposal, for what it's worth:

THEMATIC DUAL (ANIMATE)

nom. *-o-G-z > *-o:(h) > *-o:
acc. *-o-G-m > *-oGw > *-o:(w) (falling together with the nom.)
gen. *-o-G-s > ... > *-o:s

The "discoloration" and early loss of word-final *-G, and the
denasalisation of *m > *w after *G (*h3) have been proposed by Jens. I
think there may be a whole set of examples confirming the latter rule
(perhaps still unnoticed by Jens himself), but I wouldn't like to
discuss them prematurely.

ATHEMATIC DUAL (ANIMATE)

nom. *-C-G-z > *-C-e-(h) > *-Ce, with a prop vowel
(acc. & gen. borrowed from the thematic declension)

Inanimate duals are similar but with *-i- added before the duality marker:

athem. nom./acc. *-C-i-G > *-Cih > *-Ci:
thematic nom./acc. *-C-o-i-G > *-Coi(h1) > *-Coi

THEMATIC PLURAL

nom. *-o-D-z > *-o:D > -o:s (beside *-o:s-es and *-oi)
acc. *-o-D-m > *-o:m > -o:n-s (with added *-s)
voc. *-o-D > *-oi

ATHEMATIC PLURAL

nom. *-C-D-z > *-C-&-D > -es (with a prop vowel)
acc. *-C-D-m > *-C-m > -Cn.-s (with added *-s)

Non-sg. locatives show a final *-u, so perhaps

loc.du. *-o-G-u > *-ou

loc.pl. (thematic) *-o-D ~ *-o-D-u > *-oi ~ *-osu > *-oi-s-u
(athematic) *-C-D-u > *-C-s-u

Piotr