Re: PIE "I" - [was] Early Indo-European loanwords preserved in Finni

The inherited 1st p. sing. pronoun for PIE is *yé (from *yA), where *A is
the Ablautvokal; in its stress-unaccented form *yo, it is probably the
source for -*o: after deletion of the *y and compensatory lengthening.

*me is originally a 1st p. pl.: 'conversation' = 'you and I'.

An alternative 1st p.sing. male is *HA-, 'this' + *g^A-, 'male': *Hé(:)g^-.

Additionally, *HAm, 'here', could be added: *Hé(:)g^(H)om.

*me was taken over by the 1st p. sing. for oblique cases.


Patrick

----- Original Message -----
From: "etherman23" <etherman23@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2008 11:03 AM
Subject: Re: [tied] Early Indo-European loanwords preserved in Finnish


--- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "jouppe" <jouppe@...> wrote:
>
> I reposted a correction 5 minutes later:
>
> Try:
> http://koti.welho.com/jschalin/index.htm for the intro or
> http://koti.welho.com/jschalin/lexiconie.htm directly to the
> etymologies.
>
> I'm afraid there will sure be one or two errors in the IE
> reconstructions since I converted the transcription in the middle of
> the night. I should make a print out and read them through.
>
> If we use capital H for aspiration here on the net, how do we avoid
> mix-ups with the symbol for "any laryngeal not possible to know
> which 'H'"? In my lexicon this conflict did not arise once. Was it a
> coincidence? Anyone know of an example of a cluster g-H, b-H or d-H?
>
> Jouppe

IMO there are a few, but I'm not sure how many. In Indo-Iranian *H1
and H2 aspirate a preceding stop, whether voiced or not. This can be
seen in some variants where I-Ir ponts to a voiced aspirate while
other languages point to a plain voiced stop. One example I can give
is that of the first person sg. pronoun. It's reconstructed as *H1me
(Greek tells us that the laryngeal is *H1). In the nominative sg.
there's an oddball form. There are several variants. Some languages
point to a long final vowel, others don't. Some languages
unambiguously point to a plain voiced stop, but I-Ir. points to a
voiced aspirated stop. I would suggest a reconstruction something like
*H1eg^H1om where the *-H1om element is simply the o-grade of the first
person pronoun found in the rest of the paradigm. For reasons that are
unclear the final *m could be lost with compensatory lengthening
(perhaps some kind of sandhi phenomena).

Another example: *wed(H), to lead (home). Skt vadhu:, OE weotuma, Gk
ednon.