--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...> wrote:
> Yes, but I have a further question: did the same devoicing occur
in OHG, to account for its genitive singular (a-stems) in -es? And
why does it have -e- if this ending is truly from *-oso?
The OHG ending was borrowed from pronouns such as <des> (from
*tes(j)o, with accented *e).
> And if such devoicing did not occur in ON (to explain the nom./acc.
pl. ending -ar), why doesn't ON have -r as the genitive singular
ending of a-stems instead of -s?
Probably the same explanation as above. The Gmc. genitive singualar of
a-stems is one hell of a problem because of the massive contamination
with pronominal forms, happening independently in several dialects.
> I thought the more accepted explanation for the pan-Germanic
genitive singular of a-stems was that it is pronominal in origin, from
*-eso, on the analogy of *teso, *kWeso, forms of the genitive singular
of *so and *kwis/kwos (beside *tosjo, *kWosjo and others).
There is no pan-Germanic gen.sg. of a-stems. Goth. -is is clearly of
pronominal origin (< *-es(j)o-, and the *e vocalism contaminated also
the Gothic gen.pl.), while in West Germanic there are unambiguous
reflexes of nominal *-os(j)o-. Under my WGmc. devoicing scenario, both
*-ása (in original oxytone stems) and *-aza (in barytones) yield *-as
> AFris. *-æs > OE -æs, -es.
Piotr