e-o-

One could imagine that there was in PPIE a distinction between
verb-phrases

... dragon kill
"... kills the dragon"

and

... dragon-kill
"... kills a dragon" -> "... [is a] dragon-killer"

perhaps even with different conjugations, as in Hungarian, one for
transitive sentences with definite objects, one for intransitive
ones and transitive ones with indefinite objects.

If so, one would expect the stressed vowel (in casu the root vowel,
it's accusative and 3sg, probably athematic, since that is the
oldest) to be e-e in the first case and e-o in the second.

Since whoever kills indefinite dragons must be a dragon-killer
the verb phrase can be reinterpreted as an adjective or noun.
That means that o-grade becomes morphologized as the mark of a
verbal adjective or noun.

From that adjective or noun, presumably athematic, *-CóCs, *-CoCós
is formed thematic adjectives, *CoCós, *CoCós-yo, thematic nouns,
*CóCos, *CóCos-yo, causatives *CoC-éye/o and singular perfects
*CoC-e, later reduplicated *CeCoC-e, like the plural.


Torsten