From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 43785
Date: 2006-03-12
----- Original Message -----From: Patrick RyanSent: Friday, March 10, 2006 7:34 AMSubject: Re: [tied] Re: PIE athematic neuters***Patrick:Kordtland and Pedersen made good use of strictly internal PIE materials but any analysis of theirs suffers from myopia by their not being able to look beyond PIE for greater understanding of PIE origins.PIE is the result of a contact between a Caucasian-speaking group with one speaking PAA.The earliest PIE "genitive" (really 'relational') will have been -*y (Pre-Nostratic -*yi), seen in zero-grade PAA -*i.To consider *-s a "genitive" is absurd considering its uses as a nominative/ergative/singular and plural marker. With this range of uses, it could have marked nothing unambiguously.Two Caucasian languages we know were spoken in this general area: Hurrian and Urartian. Urartian has ergative singular -e (and Hurrian, -S {s superior bar}). This corresponds perfectly to pre-Nostratic *sî, 'one, unique'. I propose that its core semantic significance is 'one certain X'; and this came to be used as the marker of an ergative noun in the singular, and was borrowed (or retained) by PIE.***Patrick:SOME ADDITIONAL EXPLANATORY REMARKSWith an athematic animate noun in the ergative (*CVC-s), the plural was formed by a mechanism familiar to PAA languages: shifting the stress-accent one syllable to the right: *CVC-é-s.For a fuller argument concerning this mechanism for indicating plurality, some list-members might care to read:***