Re: IE thematic wovels

On Sun, 25 Nov 2001 02:44:13, "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...>
wrote:

>However, if
>you take another look at these systems, there is something
>that begs attention if we are to further connect the Boreal
>system with that of IndoTyrrhenian.
>
>We all know that you enjoy ad-hoc phonological rules but one
>cannot simply passively dismiss the alternations of *m/*w in the
>first person, of *t/*n in the second and of *i/NULL as nothing
>more than arcane sound changes. Of note is the fact that the
>above first and third person alternations show up even in IE.
>
>Clearly, underlying the Boreal and IndoTyrrhenian systems lies
>_two_ sets of pronominal endings:
>
> 1ps *-im *-ux
> 2ps *-it *-un
> 3ps *-i NULL
>
>I'm not the only one to feel this way since Bomhard has suggested
>this in "Indo-European and the Nostratic Hypothesis",
>mentioning differing endings for the subjective and objective
>of Uralic. Why, even dopey ol' mass-comparativist Greenberg had
>stumbled on this to a degree.

In Uralic (and Eskimo-Aleut), we find, as is plain to see from the
paradigms I posted, two sets of first person markers *-m and *-ka, two
sets of second person markers *-t and *-n and two sets of third person
markers *-0 and *-sa. But, as is equally plain to see, *-m and *-ka
occur both in the subjective (intransitive) and objective (transitive)
conjugations, and so do *-t and *-n. Only *-sa seems to be restricted
to the objective conjugation, originally as a subject marker, but (by
reanalysis of a 3/3 form *-0-sa as *-sa-0) in e.g. Mordvin also as an
object marker. Uralic does not offer a shred of evidence for a first
person marker **-ux, nor for an exclusively objective ending *-un (in
fact, au contraire: *-n is in Samoyed the subjective 2nd. person
marker, as opposed to objective *-t). What the *evidence* indicates
is:

subj. obj.
1ps *-m, *-ka *-m, *-ka
2ps *-t, *-n *-t, *-n
3ps NULL *-sa


=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...