Re: [tied] PIE athematic neuters

>>The thematic vowel occurs both in verbs (bher-o:, bher-e-s,
etc.) and nouns (h1ek^w-o-s, h1ek^w-o-m, h1ek^w-e).  Forms
without thematic vowel are athematic, so in the case of
nouns/adjectives "athematic" means, strictly, all except
o-stems (and perhaps ah2-stems).  But the i- and u-stems can
be said to have a kind of "theme vowel" as well, so your
typical 'athematic neuter' is a C-stem neuter.


Thank you very much for explaining.  May I ask whether you know how many C-stem neuters there were in IE, both simple C-stems and r-stems (and any other affixed consonants).  And if it's possible to find out, I would love to know about how many neuter i-stems and u-stems there were in IE.  In all cases I presume there were but a handful of each.

Andrew Jarrette