On 2007-06-14 09:51, tgpedersen wrote:
> If someone claimed they were old endingless nom.sg.'s (and that
> s-stems are based on genitives), how would you counter that?
(1) The phenomenon is just Latin -- there are no endingless nominatives
of thematic nouns attested anywhere in IE (except in languages where
final syllables are dropped en masse, but these can offer nothing
probative).
(2) It is phonetically restricted (just *-ro- stems of a well-defined
type; otherwise we have since:rus, ferus, etc.). For example, there are
no cases like *<magin> as a variant of <magnus> or *<lup> for <lupus>.
(3) Latin has many different rules of apocope and syncope. In its
prehistory it had initial expiratory stress, and in such a type of
language vowel loss in non-initial syllables is commonplace.
(4) There are no consonantal masculine nominatives like *h2ag^(e)r; the
only independently attested types are *h2ágo:r and *&2g^é:r.
(5) We do have apocope in cases like *faros > far and *kWatrus > quater.
Further counterarguments could be given, but these are strong enough, I
believe.
piotr