On 2006-10-05 19:42, tgpedersen wrote:
> Is there a theory on the market as to how this ablaut distribution
> in athematic roots came about historically (as oppposed to one
> which proves which cases had which ablaut grade)?
Yes, Jens has presented his theory here. According to him, acrostatic
root nouns, like Narten presents, had an underlying long vowel (which is
why the root vocalism is never zero). When further lengthened in the
nom.sg., the vowel developed overlength with an o-like offglide that
eventually coloured the whole nucleus (*e:: > *e:o > *o:). In the weak
cases the accent was originally on the ending, which led to the
shortening of the root vowel, but as the result was still a full vowel,
the accent was drawn back to it from the ending. The o-vocalism of the
nom.sg. was generalised in the strong cases, hence nom.pl. *pód-es,
acc.sg. *pód-m. Weak-case forms like gen.sg. *péd-s are only marginally
attested in the historically known languages, since they were commonly
supplanted by forms modelled on mobile paradigms (*ped-ós).
Piotr