Knut:

>And my point is simply, why could not the same be true about nouns?

But the "thematic vowel" was protected from loss of unstressed
vowels in Mid IE because it **was** stressed. AFTER the loss of
unstressed vowels, we had a thematic genitive ending in *-�s.
At this point in Early Late IE, the language quickly became
_tonal_, losing its hard stress that had just caused the vowel
loss. It was _then_ that the tonal accent was placed on the
initial rather than on the thematic vowel. This is why this
unaccented vowel (but yet a previously _stressed_ vowel) is
preserved.

>Therefor I propose something like this:
>
>Acc: *welqw�m > *wlqw�m
>Gen: *welqw�se> *wlqw�s

No, no. The correct PIE paradigm for *wlkWo- is:

*wl'kWom
*wl'kWos

The accent is always on the initial syllable (on the zero-graded
liquid *-l-). However, what I'm saying is that the accent was
originally on the final, as you mention, in Early Late IE.

Now, the thematic vowel of *wlkWo- is *-o-, but the thematic vowel
of the present conjugation is *-e- as in *bher-e-ti. This is one
more reason why Miguel is dilluded in thinking that the whole
thematic shabang derives from a single source. It's just not
possible without an unbelievable amount of pleading. There
differing vocalisms, differing usages, differing everything.

>This prosess produced homonymity between nosg, gensg, and possible
>also nompl.

No, I don't think there was ever homonymity here. You see, if
words like *wlkWos began to be constructed in Early Late IE
and formed by the use of the genitive *-�s, then the genitive would
of course be automatically identical to the nominative. But...
there must be a time when these thematic (aka "vowel-final") roots
were uncommon and in the minority, since this is right after the
loss of unstressed vowels including those in final position.

All athematic roots that survive in IE simply do not show ANY
confusion concerning the nom.sg, gen.sg and nom.pl. Therefore,
I'm absolutely certain that *-yo was tacked on immediately to
the genitival derivatives like *wlkWos to quickly solve this
unusual confusion. Secondly, the plural, again, was never identical
to the nominative. It was *wlkWo:s with a long vowel since the
plural is *-es, distinct from the nominative *-s. Note that the
genitive plural is also a vowel-initial suffix and shows the
same pattern of lengthening: *wlkWo:m (< *wlkWo- + *-om).

So I doubt that homonymity was ever allowed for even a brief amount
of time amongst these case forms.

>In my modell the vocsg is simply the stem without any other
>ending than the thematic wovel.

We are in agreement about the origins of the vocative, it seems.

>Later on e was rounded to o in most forms,

By what process could a final vowel become rounded? Why only
*most* and not *all* vocative forms??

- love gLeN


_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp