--- In
cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Richard Wordingham" <richard.wordingham@...> wrote:
>
> --- In cybalist@yahoogroups.com, "Torsten" <tgpedersen@> wrote:
>
> > ...and before that why non-Anatolian IE decided to introduce a
> > feminine gender.
>
> Actually, I think I can see a mechanism, if this is indeed
> historically correct. (Cue the alternative view from Copenhagen?)
I think the *-aÅ or *-aN suffix (that's how I understand it) was borrowed from somewhere else, since it seems not to inflect when first borrowed; it appears in the NPl only in the nom./acc. I think it developed several alloforms because of the instability of the nasal vowel:
-> *-a:# ;
-> *-am# ;
-> *-oN# -> *-o:# ;
-> *´-in- ;
-> *´-ak-s
of which the *-a: and *-am were then cut up wrong as *-a: and *-a-m, from which a stem in -a was abstracted and supplied with rest of the cases by analogy, leaving the *´-o: and *´-in- endings from which the n-stems were synthesized. With this common origin of the -a and -n stems we don't have to be puzzled why the Germanic feminine -a should be constructed from **-on, the two are identical.
From the *-ak- suffix a paradigm was constructed (Lat. vorax etc).
Rozwadowski's change produced *-aÅ -> *-eÅ (Germanic -ing-, -ung-, both feminine).
I will still claim that the suffix is individuating not collectivizing: it produces something unitary (note old 3sg verbs for NPlNom -a:) out of something plural. It became feminine not actively, but by being gradually excluded from the Masc. gender because of its other sense as diminutive (which can't be used for important men: no 'prezzie' for President or 'primie' for Prime Minister). For some reason it is similar in its use to a Semitic *-at- suffix (IIRC), but I think the original source in non-Anatolic IE is Finno-Permic or whatever lay under that: the suffix occurs also in FP tree names
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/cybalist/message/64751
(the -v-, -j-, -k- are regular reflexes of *-Å- in Finno-Ugric).
The willow name, probably taken from the same language which gave us the *-aÅ- suffix, would be *saÅ-al-aÅ-, from *saÅ- "wet hole (to the other side)", the adjectivizing suffix *-al- and the individuating *-aÅ- suffix (our topic).
Torsten