Re: Slavic endings

Andrew Jarrette <anjarrette@...> wrote:

> mcvwxsnl <mcv@...> wrote:
> The facts about the stress are the following:
>
> masc. nom. *-os could be stressed (mobile paradigm) or unstressed
> (barytone paradigm). In both cases the result is (pre-Dybo's law)
> Slavic unstressed -U.
> masc. acc. *-om was always unstressed in Proto-Balto-Slavic. It
> gives
> Slavic unstressed -U.
> neuter NA. *-os (s-stems) was always unstressed. It gives Slavic
> unstressed -o.
> _________
> Why did unstressed *-os become -U in masculines, but become -o
> in neuters?

Either, as Piotr suggested, the presence of oblique forms in -es-
triggered a special development of the NAsg. in -os, or the -o of the
s-stems does not continue PIE *-os, but pronominal *-od.

> This suggests that perhaps unstressed *o before *s
> remained /o/ rather than being raised

Unstressed -os becomes -U in the o-stem nom. sg., in the dat.pl. *-
mos > -mU, in the verbal 1pl. *-mos > -mU. We only have -o in the
neuter s-stems, where the obvious explanation for the -o, in my
opinion, is analogy after all the other neuter forms.

> , and that -U in the masculines is
> from the accusative.

That, of course, cannot be excluded. Accent-wise, the nom.sg. form of
mobile o-stems continues the accusative. The question is whether the
accusative took the place of the nominative, or whether the
nominative shifted its stress back after it had become the only
singular form with end-stress in mobile words (after the loss of the
instrumental in *-óh1 > -á).

> It can be added that in the verbal system, stressed *-ós (e.g.
> 1pl. mobile -mós) and *-óm (e.g. 1sg. thematic aorist *-(s)óm) both
> give -U (which was stressed before Ivs^ic''s law).
> ________
> Robert Beekes suggests that the 1 pl. ending might have been -
> mom in some languages, rather than *-mos (alongside *-mem (Greek -
> men) and *-mes).

Like Piotr, I don't think there was any such thing as *-mom. The
Greek ending reflects PIE *-m(W)en, where *-en- is a verbal plural
marker, also found in 2pl. *-ten- (Hitt. -ten, -teni; Toch. -cer) and
3pl. -en-t/-er(s).

The Slavic 1pl. ending hesitates between *-mos > -mU and *-mes > -me.
Perhaps something similar is seen in Baltic, where we have -me: in
Lithuanian, and maybe *-mo: > -ma(i) in Prussian. I would attribute
the Umlaut e>o here to the labialized nasal, which also explains
Hittite 1pl. -wen(i), -wan(i).

--
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal