Re: [tied] Re: Greek and Sanskrit neuter plural and related questio

>Can anyone tell me why it is that Greek neuter o-stem plurals end in
<-a> and not <-e:>, as their counterparts in Latin, Gothic, Slavic and (I
think) Vedic would suggest?

I'm not sure what you mean here.   Do you mean the neuters like genos (which
are really -s stems 3rd declension) or the thematic neuters like ergon (2nd
declension)?  Both show the neuter plural ending -a in Greek, but they also
do in Latin.  Where does this -e: you refer to come in?

>I have heard that some consider the Latin eh2-stem ending <-a>,
as well as the neuter o-stem plural <-a>, to represent a short vowel

The neuter plural is originally long in both Greek and Latin and in PIE
seems to have been either -long a or short schwa.

Peter

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The <e:> I'm referring to is the hypothetical classical Greek reflex of an ending *-eh2 which has been postulated for the o-stem neuter plurals, based on the Latin ending <-a>, the Germanic endings <-u> and <-a> (in Gothic), the Slavic ending <-a>, and the Vedic ending <-a:(ni)> (I forget whether Vedic added <-ni> or whether that was only a classical Sanskrit phenomenon).  You yourself say that the neuter plural (sc. of o-stems?) is originally long in Greek, so wouldn't you also have expected <-e:> here (or else <-o:> if from *-oh2)?  That's my point.  It seems that the universal neuter plural ending is -h2, which appears as such in the consonant stems, but in o-stems should appear after the thematic vowel (which Latin suggests was *e rather than *o in the neuter plural form), giving a long vowel *-a:(which would > Classical Greek *-e:), and in i-stems and u-stems produces *-ih2 and -uh2, appearing as <-i:(ni)> and <-u:(ni)> in Sanskrit but as <-ia> and <-ua> (or <-ya> depending on transliteration) in Classical Greek.  So it seems that the reflexes of the IE formation of neuter plurals are regular in Greek everywhere but in the o-stems.  My question is why is this?  It seems that Greek somehow saw the need to replace an expected *-a: (> *-e:) with <-a> instead, in the o-stem neuter plurals.  What was the need?  Or is there some other explanation?  Why would IE have used the simple *-h2 ending without thematic vowel, same as in consonant stems, in 0-stems, but elsewhere be regular, i.e. stem+h2 (which would be *o or *e + h2 in o-stems, yet Greek does not show this)?  Is there a good reason to explain this?  I'm interested because knowing the true original state of affairs is important to me as regards my personal interests.

 

Andrew