On Fri, 16 Sep 2005 10:57:04 +0200, Piotr Gasiorowski
<
gpiotr@...> wrote:
>The e-nominatives are typically simple action nouns or agent nouns with
>stative values like *ne:k^-s 'death', *pre:k^-s 'prayer, request',
>*spe:k^-s 'watcher', *gWHe:n 'killer' or *dje:u-s 'shining'. In the weak
>cases the accent moves to the inflectional ending: (*pr.k^-ós, *diw-ós,
>etc.).
>
>The meaning of the o-nominatives always involves iterative or
>resultative nuances, e.g. *bHo:r 'robber, thief' (= 'one who regularly
>takes things away'), *wo:kW-s 'utterance, speech' (= 'the effect of
>speaking') or *do:m 'house, building' (= 'the result of construction').
>The o-nominatives have week cases with *e, such as *wekW-ós or *ped-ós,
>and there are traces of an archaic-looking acrostatic pattern: gen.sg.
>*dém-s, *nékWt-s, loc.pl. pé:d-su, etc., suggesting "Nartenoid" vocalism
>in pre-PIE.
I see no semantic difference between *gWHe:n and *bHo:r, or
*pre:k^-s and *wo:kW-s.
>Here and in his publications, Jens has presented a very
>strong case for interpreting the *o: as a reflex of an originaly
>overlong (trimoraic) root vowel, i.e. a fundamental *e: further
>lengthened in the nom.sg.
As I understand Jens' theory, pre-PIE *e: should have
resulted in "Narten-Ablaut" e: ~ e, that is to say, original
**é: remains long, and original unstressed (pretonic) *e: is
shortened and attracts the accent (*e:..' > *é). Pre-PIE
*e:: [i.e. lengthened *e:] results in Ablaut o ~ e (as in
*wodr [< **we:dr-h2] ~ *wedn-).
My elaboration of Jens' theory is that pre-PIE still had
three vowel qualities *a, *i and *u (long and short), the
long variants of which result in the following Ablaut
patterns:
stressed pretonic
*a: ó é
*u: ó 0
*i: é: 0
The attested nominal patterns *pó:ds (*pódm.), *péd(o)s;
pré:k^s (*pré:k^m.), pr.k^ós and *wódr, *udnós (perhaps
*wódr, *wédnos if *wa:- instead of *u:-), *póntoHs,
*pn.tHós, etc., with pre-PIE *a:, *i: and *u:, respectively,
follow automatically from this.
The verb is a different matter. Vedic appears to have
regularized a mixed *e: [from *e: or from *o in an open
syllable] ~ *e Ablaut, as recognized by Narten (although we
also have regular stáumi ~ stuvánti, má:rjmi, mr.jánti,
etc.). Hittite has regularized the *o ~ *e pattern in the
perfect, whereas elsewhere we have unexpected *o ~ 0 (with
traces of *e:).
=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...