Re: IE Thematic Vowel Rule

From: tgpedersen
Message: 39563
Date: 2005-08-09

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "elmeras2000" <jer@...> wrote:
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...>
wrote:
> > Apart from the nominative supposed *-z, all the succeeding
> > consonants that cause the thematic vowel to be /o/ are nasals. Now
> > suppose the nominative ending was instead *-ns (<- *-ms ?); then
> > they were all nasals. In that case we might have */aN/ > /ãN/ >
> > */õN/ > /oN/; that would explain the timbre.
>
> No, there are also /y/, /w/, /d/, vowels and perhaps some voiced
> aspirates. It's not a matter of nasalization.
>

On the subject, an odd parallel example occurred to me.

In Russian there are, among others, to prepositions.

k , ko (< *kU) "to"
s , so (< *sU) "with"

with the appropriate cases (dative, instrumental) of the sg personal
pronouns, they become

ko mné "to me"
k tebyé "to thee"
k sebyé "to him/her/it (refl.)"

so mnóy "with me"
s tobóy "with thee"
s sobóy "with him/her/it (refl.)"

In other words, the half-dead vowel U ('jer' from PIE /u/) becomes /o/
before nasal, and zero before unvoiced.

Could we from this example infer something about the fate of
PIE 'intermediate' schwa from /a/, the ablaut vowel? On the other
hand, it's 's vami' "with you (pl.)". But /v/ is not /w/.


Torsten