--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <miguelc@...>
wrote:
>
> On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 12:52:04 -0000, "tgpedersen"
> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> >>[mcv]
> >> I can't do anything with pecus, pecudis
> >
> >How about a 'pronominal ending' *pek^ud-. If Slavic can do it, so
> >can Latin.
>
> The ending *-d is strictly neuter NA sg. It is highly
> unlikely that it would be transferred to the oblique
> (pecudis) or that nominative and accusative endings would be
> added to it (pecus, pecudem).
If you take a look at the Erzya Mordvin paradigms in
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/47389
you will notice that in the indefinite the paradigm has only one case
in the plur., which is the nominative. Finnish has the same suffix -t
in the nominative, but uses a suffix -i- in the pl. oblique cases
(this state of affairs goes back to PFU). In Estonian, the -t (> -d)
has spread to the oblique pl. cases, the oblique pl. -i- suffix is
falling out of use. One might prefer to see it as if the Npl. wasn't a
case of the pl., but of the sg., and that the extension of the concept
of plurality to the oblique cases was a later idea.
Now suppose the PIE *-(u)d was a case (singulative? partitive?) among
others in a paradigm (in the sg.); once it became an independent word,
it would have to base its oblique cases on whatever stem was
available, ie. the nom. one in *-(u)d. So it's pretty likely.
> As it is, pecu,pecoris / pecus,pecu: meaning "cattle" and
> pecus,pecudis (f.) meaning "a head of cattle", it looks like a
> singulative suffix *-d-.
> Any ideas?
>
> >Which reminds me
> >
> >http://www.hhhh.org/perseant/libellus/aides/allgre/allgre.105.html
> >
> >These variants I haven't seen before. We might have nom. *pek^ud ->
> >pecú, abl. *pek^ud -> pecú. It meshes nicely with my idea that the
> >pronominal nNA -d is an old partitive = ablative. How would you
> >explain them?
>
> As u-stems (= Fourth Declension).
Of course. It's been a while, I'm afraid. I still think *-d belongs
there though. It would apply in NA and DAbl, if it's an old partitive.
So m. N. sg. *pek^u-s, Obl. (ie. including n. NA sg.) *pek^uNd-,
generalized to two different stems (the -Nd- becomes -nt- elsewhere).
BTW German Viecher "critters" is not mentioned much in dictionaries,
but is common German use. It might show the s-stem existed in Germanic
too.
Torsten