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

On Mon, 04 Oct 2004 13:15:13 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<gpiotr@...> wrote:

>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 thematic genitive is more complex than that. In
Sankrit, it's -ayo:s, which points to *-oyh1ous. The -ou-
part may be from the locative (Avestan distinguishes gen.
-ayå (*-aya:h) from loc. -ayo: (*-ayau)), but the *-oyH-
(-ay-, not *-a:y-) is doubtlessly there. This is confirmed
by Greek oblique -oiin, -oiun, from a locative *-oyHu- (<
*-oyh1-h3-u. cf. pl. *-oy-sW-u ?) + -m.

>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

Do you agree that the gen. is the same as the acc., except
that no *-s was added?

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

If so, how do you explain the ath. gen. pl., which isn't
*-m?

>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

But the dat/abl.pl. also has *-oy-, and the *-o:y- from the
ins.pl. most likely is also based on *-oy-something (I also
think, as I stated at the very beginning of this thread,
that the gen. and acc. pl. also contain *-oy-).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...