Re: IE Thematic Vowel Rule

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

>
> > Of course I can see that, on the surface, stem-final vowels seem
> > to be different from the other vowels of the language. What I'm
> > wondering is whether appearances are deceiving here. My
> > inclination thus far is that they are.
>
> Well, this may be a matter of different goals. I will give priority
> any day to an account that manages to accept the material as is. If
> we always declare appearances deceitful we get so much leeway that
> no rigour will be left.

We are not arguing over reconstructed IE proper, but rather over what
the prestages of IE were like. To reconstruct these earlier and
prestages of IE, it seems that one must rely largely on internal
reconstruction, with comparison to other language families believed
to be related to IE filling a smaller role (but still useful).

> [snip]
>
> I conclude the opposite on the same basis. If the special rules
> that *do* apply to the thematic vowels were of recent date they
> should apply also to the other vowels of the language. Why do they
> not do that in your opinion?

Let me clarify: so far, I've concluded that the "thematic"
declensions were more recent than the root-noun declension, at the
very least. In all probability, there was a time where
the "thematic" declensions and some "athematic stem" declensions were
productive.

However, the "athematic" declensions, by and large, show the
characteristic e-grade/zero-grade Ablaut alternations that seem to be
explained by alternations in stress. The "thematic" declensions do
not show such Ablaut. I conclude that the zero-grading processes
*ceased to be productive* before the advent of the "thematic"
declensions, i.e. that the language's stress became non-alternating
(in other words, fixed where it had been).

Now, as I've said before, I've seen a connection between
the "athematic" genitive suffix *-ós and the "thematic masculine"
declension. It seems that this connection can also explain the lack
of alternation in the stem-vowel of that declension, if it was
considered (at the time of its formation) to be inherently stressed.
Furthermore, the *ó of the "thematic masculine" stem and
the "athematic" genitive suffix seem to be a separate phoneme from
the normal Ablautend vowel. There are some other cases of "aberrant
*ó" in IE, namely some demonstrative pronouns (e.g. *so, *to-). I've
tried to link these together as coming from earlier *á: (i.e.
stressed /a:/) which itself may have come about from allophony of
*á. In any case, if *á: existed (for I may very well be wrong and it
may have not), it seems to have acquired an o-timbre, but also to
have remained *only phonetic* until qualitative Ablaut came about.

So, in short, there appears to have been a complex interplay between
accent and vocalism in IE. At one point (the earliest), stress was
alternating, producing the e-grade/zero-grade quantitative Ablaut
alternations. Afterwards, this process became nonproductive,
resulting in the stress being "fixed" (i.e. non-alternating). It was
in the latter environment that the "thematic" declensions appear to
have been born.

> [snip]
>
> > One can see that most of the transparent (i.e. recent) compounds
> > in IE had recessive accent.
>
> What are you talking about?

Most of the compounds we see in the daughter languages, where we can
easily break them down into their components, seem to have had
initial accent in origin. In languages like Greek, later accent
rules obscure this, but we can still make it out, e.g.
de:spóte:s 'lord of the house' < *dénspote:s < IE *démspotis.

> > Furthermore, zero-grade syllables could obviously
> > carry accent in latest IE: witness *wl'kWos 'wolf' and
> > *septm' 'seven'.
>
> Yes, relevance?

The relevance is that zero-grade syllables are produced by lack of
stress, so such syllables must have been *unstressed* earlier.

> > All this seems to me like evidence of the accent
> > weakening from one of stress to one of pitch.
>
> Why so?

For one, the earliest attested IE descendants appear to have had
pitch-accent. Another thing is the qualitative Ablaut. Finally,
pitch-accent is not nearly as prone to syncope and apocope vowels as
stress-accent is, and the more recent IE forms do not seem to have
undergone those processes.

> > Looking at the o-stem masculine nouns, we have the following:
> >
> > Nom. sg. *-os pl. *-o:s
> > Acc. sg. *-om pl. *-ons
> > Gen. sg. *-osyo pl. *-o:m
> > Dat. sg. *-o:i pl. *-o:is
> > Abl. sg. *-o:d pl. *-o:is
> > Ins. sg. *-o: pl. *-o:is
> > Loc. sg. *-oi pl. *-oisu
>
> What is this? The instr. is *-o-H1, and the Dat/Abl.pl is *-oy-
> bhyos.

*-o-h1 gives *-o:, correct?

> > In my opinion, this can be traced back to an earlier scheme:
> >
> > Nom. sg. *-o-s pl. *-o-es
> > Acc. sg. *-o-m pl. *-o-ns
> > Gen. sg. *-o-s-yo pl. *-o-om
> > Dat. sg. *-o-ei pl. *-o-eis
> > Abl. sg. *-o-ed pl. *-o-eis
> > Ins. sg. *-o-e? pl. *-o-eis
> > Loc. sg. *-o-i pl. *-o-isu
> >
> > That is, there was a non-alternating stem vowel in *-o to which
> > the case endings were agglutinated. My source here is Sihler's
> > New Comparative Grammar of Greek and Latin (1995).
>
> If you read that carefully you'll see he only takes *-o:is as the
> old instrumental plural. The dat./abl. is not treated in his
> exposé, but the Vedic form devébhyah. is given in the chart.
> Besides, it's common knowledge.

I read it carefully. He indeed does not treat dat./abl. pl. for some
reason, so I relied on an "educated guess" there. However, he *does*
consider Vedic devébhyah to be an innovation, but he could be
mistaken there.

> > Looking at the o-stem neuter nouns, we have the following:
> >
> > Nom./Acc. sg. *-om pl. *-a: < *-ex
> >
> > The other cases are the same as for the masculines. Where you
> > see a common thematic vowel in both the singular and plural here,
> > I see suppletion. In other words, I do not consider the vowel in
> > *-ex to have the same origin as that in *-om.
>
> But the neuter pl. only has *-a: in *thematic* stems. That ought to
> count for something.

Hmm, perhaps. What about the neuter s-stems? Do those have a plural
in *-ex or *-x?

> > Looking at the a:-stem neuter nouns, we have the following:
> >
> > Nom. sg. *-a: pl. *-a:s
> > Acc. sg. *-a:m pl. *-a:ns
> > Gen. sg. *-a:s pl. *-a:om
> > Dat. sg. *-a:i pl. *-a:is
> > Abl. sg. *-a:d pl. *-a:is
> > Ins. sg. *-a: pl. *-a:is
> > Loc. sg. *-a:i pl. *-a:isu
>
> Why do you call them neuter? Do you mean feminine?

Yes, sorry. That was a careless mistake. Change that to "feminine".

> Here too some cases are strange: The dat.pl was *-aH2-bhyos (would
> be *-a:bhyos in your notation), the instr.pl. was *-aH2-bhis (*-
> a:bhis), and the loc.pl. was *-aH2-su (*-a:su); there was no i-
> diphthong in these endings.

All right. The jury still seems to be out whether *-ex-bhyos and *-
ex-bhis were innovations or not, but if they weren't, that would tie
the "thematic" declensions even closer to the "athematic" ones.

> > Again, this looks like it can be traced to an earlier scheme,
> > with *-a: < *-ex:
> >
> > Nom. sg. *-ex pl. *-ex-es
> > Acc. sg. *-ex-m pl. *-ex-ns
> > Gen. sg. *-ex-s pl. *-ex-om
> > Dat. sg. *-ex-ei pl. *-ex-eis
> > Abl. sg. *-ex-ed pl. *-ex-eis
> > Ins. sg. *-ex-e? pl. *-ex-eis
> > Loc. sg. *-ex-i pl. *-ex-isu
>
> That is just plain wrong.

Is it, now? Might you want to explain how? Saying so proves
nothing, at least not to me. So please, by all means, prove your
case.

> > The obvious conclusion here is that there was a stem-formant *-ex
> > to which the case endings were agglutinated. It also seems that
> > this formant is identical to the neuter plural ending *-ex.
>
> Sure, the stem was *-e-H2, and the endings followed, just as with
> other derivative stems.

Is there any concrete evidence that the vowel and the *h2 are
separable?

> > Finally, I think the common element in all of these endings is
> > that the stem-formant was originally *stressed*. That's probably
> > what your "special articulatory prominence" is. Non-alternating
> > stress means non-alternating stressed vowel. Thus these stem-
> > formants were spared the metaphorical ravages of zero-grading (if
> > that process was still productive when the stem-formants came to
> > be used).
>
> Well, the problem was: Why does the thematic vowel not vary with a
> varying accent? You just say there is no varying accent. But there
> is, so the problem remains.

Notice I said "originally" above. I'm trying to look at things
diachronically here. Of course there is varying accent in IE. What
I'm saying is, the "thematic masculine" suffix was inherently
stressed *at the time when that declension was formed*. Later
processes made it so that the suffix no longer had to be stressed.

> [snip]
>
> > You misunderstand. It's not a question of liking or disliking
> > the language. For me, it's a question of "What are the facts,
> > and why are they the way they are?"
>
> That is not at all the vein you are dealing with the problem in.
> You realloy are disqualifying the facts as if you won't have them.

Please point out any and all instances of my alleged disqualifying of
the facts. Are you sure that when you say "the facts", you don't
really mean *your theories as to the origin(s) of those facts*?

> > My stance is not one where your rule applies everywhere in IE.
> > We do agree that to posit such a rule for the entirety of the
> > language would not hold, because the facts say otherwise. My
> > point was, in the absence of any conditioning factors, a phonetic
> > rule that affects a given sound must do so wherever that sound
> > exists in a language.
>
> And what will you do when you come across a language where special
> rules are observed to apply to stem-final vowels and other rules to
> vowels in other positions? Deny the existence of the facts? That IS
> what you are doing. I refuse to follow.

Give me an example of a living language where special rules are
observed to apply to stem-final vowels and other rules to vowels in
other positions *without any readily apparent conditioning factors
separating the two groups*. I asked you this before and you seemed
to ignore it. If that's true, maybe you won't ignore it this time.

> > All I will say to this is that there is no reason to get personal
> > here.
>
> But you are again "just shouting noise to deny the facts". That's
> not personal: nobody should do that.

If you feel that I'm doing that, well, that's your problem. I know
that I'm not. End of discussion.

> > > You are simply giving up on the facts and just dreaming up
> > > some others that will suit you, in blatant contrast to your
> > > proclaimed ideals.
> >
> > Why would I do that? How could I benefit from doing such a
> > thing? I can't think of any answer here; can you?
>
> Hypocrits act that way.

Excuse me?

> > In other words, you are again mistaken about me.
>
> Only if you are not the hipocrit I have taken you for.

Calling me a hypocrite does not prove your ideas correct and mine
wrong. Thus, there is nothing to be gained from this name-calling.

> > Latin _sequo:r_ is translated into English as "I follow" -- that
> > is, with an *active* voice in English, although the verb is
> > morphologically *passive* in Latin. If I understand you
> > correctly, you seem to be saying that the morphologically passive
> > verbs with active semantics in Latin are impossible. Obviously
> > they are not.
>
> Where did I say that? Latin sequor is not opposed to a passive, IE
> *-o: is the active opposed to a middle which is *-aH2i. Why would
> *-o: then be an old middle-voice form? With the wrong colour of the
> thematic vowel, and without the primary marker?

You seemed to imply that changes in voice do not happen in
languages. Obviously they do. If you did not intend to imply that,
then I humbly stand corrected.

Latin _sequo:r_ is a morphological passive, coming from a
morphological middle. However, it is semantically active. What is
hard to understand about this?

> [snip]
>
> > > We actually have it combined with the thematic vowel in the
> > > middle voice which is *-a-H2-i, secondary ending *-a-H2.
> >
> > Where does the *-a come from?
>
> That is the thematic vowel *-e-, here coloured to *-a- by the
> contiguous *H2.

That's what I thought. I was a little confused by the use of "a"
here and "e" elsewhere.

> [snip]

- Rob