Re: IE & Uralic

--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@...> wrote:

>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "ualarauans" <ualarauans@...> wrote:
> >
> > --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "tgpedersen" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > And why the correspondence
> > > Slavic genitive < ablative *-od <-> Fennic separative *-tV?
> >
> > Frankly, I fail to see anything but a chance resemblance unless we
> > look upon it from a Nostratic perspective. Obviously, PIE *-od
> > ablative became Proto-Slavic genitive long before linguistic
> > contacts between Slavs and Fenni.
>
> No. The Slavs derive from those IE-speakers who survived Attila's
> butcher tour back and forth over Europe in those swamps I forget the
> name of, and the various FU languages are patches of a language

family

> that took up much more space in the area which is now East Slavic.
> Numerous FU languages have disappeared from there in historic times
> alone. The genesis of Slavic might well have taken place in formerly
> Fennic territory by former Fennic speakers.

Looks like the proto-Slavs were active participants of that tour. At
least the few recorded "Hunnish" words look pretty Slavic (strava,
medos...).

Afaik there's no general consensus about the urheimat of the Slavs,
but what seems more or less a shared opinion is that they didn't
originate in the would-be East Slavic area, at the very least not
where the Fennic substrate is detectable. Historical times
(assimilation of Fennic groups of Northeast Europe by coming Slavs,
since 8-9th ct. CE) are too late for abl. > gen., I'd say. Correct me
if I'm misunderstanding something.

The use of the *-ôd formation for genitive is attested also outside
Balto-Slavic (but note Old Prussian divergence: deiwas "Gottes" –
German(ic) superstrate?). Karl H. Schmidt in Zur Deklination der
o-Stämme in den "westindogermanischen Sprachen" [Lingua Posnaniensis
XXXI, Warsaw-Poznan', 1990, p.7]: "Im Keltiber. wird der Gen. Sg. der
o-Stämme nicht durch –î sondern durch –o gebildet: _tocoitos cue :
sarnicio : cue (Botorrita) 'des Togets und des Sarnicios'. Die [...]
Formation auf –o geht vermutlich auf den Ablat. auf –ôd zurück und
entspricht damit dem slavischen, ostbaltischen und 'dakischen' Typus
[...]. Wenn man den Abzug der Iren früher ansetzt als den der
Keltiberer, dann ist davon auszugehen, daß von zwei Varianten - *-î
neben *-ôd – im Irischen *-î, im Keltiberischen dagegen *-ôd sich
durchsetzen konnte".

> > Do you have ideas about why it (abl. > gen.) happened?
>
> For a native Fennic speaker it was a natural thing to substitute his
> separative/partitive with an IE ablative. Almost same ending, almost
> same meaning. Also, case suffixes are old postpositions, those can be
> borrowed.

If we proceed from what is usually told in history books about
migrations of Slavs, they must have reachen Fennic domain already
speaking distinctive Slavic, not IE, not even Balto-Slavic.

> Estonian 'sajab lund' "it rains" (lume "snow" in the partitive)

Sajab vihma. Suomi Finns say _sataa_ lit. "[it] falls", or _sataa
vettä_ "[it] falls of water" and _sataa lunta_ "it snows". Compare
with Slavic "fall" cases (Could Mate give some examples please?).

[...]

> > > The other thing to consider is how close East Germanic was to
> > > Slavic and Fennic during its genesis?
> >
> > During the genesis of East Germanic? I don't think it was
> > particularly close to Slavic for it didn't border Slavic. But some
> > syntactic traits shared with Slavic might have been acquired by
> > Gothic later in East Europe, as a consequence of the Gotho-Slavic
> > intercourse.
>
> Check out:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wielbark_culture

I'd keep apart the genesis of the Gotones and the genesis of the would
be Gothic language which (the latter) could have taken place much
earlier in South Scandinavia. But then, you'll refer me to the Fennic
substrate I guess, right? :) No place free of substrate, not an acre.

Ualarauans