[tied] Re: PIE Word Formation (1)

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Piotr Gasiorowski <gpiotr@...> wrote:

>
> On 2006-04-05 15:58, Rob wrote:
>
> > I am sorry, but they do not suffice for me.
>
> You're exceptionally hard to please.

Yes, I suppose I am. :)

> What kind of evidence would you find sufficient, if an attested
> pattern sufficeth not?

Evidence that does not require the "thematic vowel" to be treated
different from the other instances of ablauting vowels, typologically
speaking.

> > On another note, isn't
> > there another genitive form *tosyo for that demonstrative root?
>
> There is. But *to-sjo can easily be analogical (after the gen.sg. of
> nouns), while forms like *te-s(j)o or *kWe-s(j)o (as in Goth. þis,
> OPruss. stesse, Slavic *c^eso, Hom. Gk. téo) have got no obvious
> analogical source, so they're likely to be original.

I was under the impression that the *-osyo genitive was composed of
the athematic (animate) genitive *-ós with the anaphoric root *yo-.
Is that not the case? If it is, however, then the apparent genitive
forms in *-so must have a different origin.

> > While I can readily see how word-final and/or phrase-final
> > position can be special in languages, I'm having a harder time
> > seeing that case with stem-final position. Is there any
> > conclusive evidence for the latter?
>
> English shows it! Isn't that conclusive enough?

Does English show it? I'm not convinced of that yet. The fact that
English <ng> fluctuates between [N] and [Ng] is interesting, but I am
not completely sure as to what caused it. Also, if English does treat
the "stem-final" position differently from other positions, we should
expect to see other phonemes undergo similar alternations. One
phoneme, I'm afraid, just doesn't seem to be enough.

- Rob