Re: Some accentological thoughts...

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, Miguel Carrasquer Vidal <miguelc@...>
wrote:

>
> On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 22:53:43 -0000, "tgpedersen"
> <tgpedersen@...> wrote:
>
> >> The solution is to start from a mobile paradigm
> >> *vIdová, acc. vÍdovoN. Then, weak yers lose their
> >> stressability: *vIdová, *vIdóvoN.
> >
> >In terms I can understand:
> >*vidová, *vídovoN -> (jerification)
> >*vIdová, *vídovoN -> (regularization)
>
> I wouldn't put it like that. The change i > I was
> unconditional and independent of stress.
>
> >*vIdová, *vIdóvoN

The *result* of the rule, yes. But was it applied everywhere
simultaneously? We don't know. This mechanism ultimately delivers the
same result. There's something that doesn't feel right about the idea
of a vowel that gets so short that it can't carry the stress anymore.
Why should that happen to a stressed vowel? Jerification of unstressed
vowels makes phonological sense. Jerification of stressed vowels
doesn't, so we better find a different mechanism which achieves the
same result.

> >which means that after i -> I, is jerified, it is no longer
> >syllable-forming, and since there is thus no longer a syllable in
> >the nominative corresponding to the one where the accusative places
> >the stress, the whole paradigm gets too strange, so stress in the
> >accusative is moved to the next syllable? Does that make sense?
> >
> >BTW what does this a. p. correspond to in PIE?
>
> Which a.p.? In my view, PIE consonant stems become a.p. I
> [initial-stressed] if acrostatic, a.p. III [final-initial-
> -stressed] if mobile (proterodynamic, amphidynamic and
> hysterodynamic). Barytone vowel stems ('-os, '-is, '-us,
> '-a:) become a.p. I, oxytones become a.p. III (-ós, -ís,
> -ús, -á:), except neuters (-óm > -ód) and compound nouns
> with a stressed suffix (*-ikós, *-otós, etc.), which become
> a.p. II [theme-stressed]. The distribution of verbs is
> similar for athematic verbs: acrostatic -> a.p. I, mobile ->
> a.p. III. But thematic verbs become a.p. III when _barytone_
> (bhéro:), but a.p. II when oxytone (tudó:, -jó:, -nó:,
> -dhó:, -éi(h1)o:).

Thanks for the overview.
The reconstructions of PIE stress in whichever nominal paradigms I've
seen had the same stress in Nsg and Asg. What is the reason for the
stress alternation eg golová, gólovu? Was the PPIE *-ax suffix
stressed in parts of the IE languages? If so, perhaps the 'real'
feminine a-stem is the one in gune:, gunaik-, with the suffix
alternating *-x#, *-k-.


Torsten