Re: [tied] PIE Word Formation (2)

----- Original Message -----

From: Piotr Gasiorowski

To: cybalist@yahoogroups.com

Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:36 AM

Subject: [tied] PIE Word Formation (2)

Nomina (ctd.)

Contrastive accent and secondary full grades

Substantives tend to be distinguished from related adjectives by means
of contrastive accent. The phenomenon can be illustrated with such pairs
as *bHór-o-s 'load, burden' : *bHor-ó- 'carrying', both from the root
*bHer- 'carry'). Note that in this case we are not dealing with
straightforward substantivisation -- there is a diathetic contrast
between the agentive meaning of the adjective and the
passive/resultative meaning of the noun ('something carried'); agent
nouns like *bHor-ó-s 'carrier' are not distinguished from adjectives.
Feminine abstracts are accented on the thematic element (*bHor-á-h2)
irrespective of whether the focus is on an activity ('act of carrying')
or the corresponding state ('being carried, motion').

<snip>

 

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Patrick:

 

This is another rather transparent example of the mechanism which I suggested is inherited from the PAA language from which PIE was developed:

 

'CV-C(V), singular; CV-'CV, plural.

 

 

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