Piotr Gasiorowski wrote:
> If M2 was a thematic agent noun, and M1 was a noun governed by the
> corresponding verb, the accent was on M2: *dru-tomh1ó-s 'wood-cutter'.
> Vedic has this pattern also when M2 is a root noun, but the evidence of
> Greek partly contradicts that of Vedic, and since the vocalism of M2 is
> usually nil, the Vedic pattern is probably an innovation (on the analogy
> of the highly productive *-tomh1ó- type).
A clarification is perhaps in order. The "root noun" occurring in most
verbal governing compounds is a species different from the "true"
free-standing root noun (such as *bHo:r) and also from the true root
noun occasionally appearing in compounds like Ved. nr.-há:n (< *-gWHé:n,
with full vocalism). The "compositional root noun" is typically
nil-grade and extended with *-t- if the last segment is *i, *u, a
syllabic liquid, nasal, or (sometimes) a laryngeal. So it's something
like Ved. -stut- 'praising', -it- (*-h1i-t-) or -gat- 'going'
(*-gWm.-t-), -kr.t- 'making' (*-kWr.-t-). As demonstrated by Olsen,
these "root nouns" most likely originated as phonetically reduced
compounded variants of *-nt- participles, so that a compound like RV
dyu-gát reflects a combination of *djeu- with *gWm-ent-, with original
accent on M1: *djú-gWm.(n)t- 'sky-walking'. The *t disappears after
stops, but M2s like *-wid-, *-spek^- or *-sed- occur with weak-noun
extensions in Germanic, which may be another trace of the original *-nt-
ending.
Piotr