--- In nostratic@..., "Glen Gordon" <glengordon01@...> wrote:

>
> 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 *-ós.
> 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.
>

Yes, I know.

> >Therefor I propose something like this for a group of nouns:
> >
> >Acc: *welqwèm > *wlqwèm
> >Gen: *welqwèse> *wlqwès
>
> No, no. The correct PIE paradigm for *wlkWo- is:
>
> *wl'kWom (acc)
> *wl'kWos (Nom)

Yes, I know that too. And gen: wl`kWesio, dat: wl`kwo:i, lok. wl`kWoi
and so on. What I tried to do here, is to show the very first
transformation of this group of nouns during the zero-grade period.

---------------------------------------------------------------
I am not sure if I have managed to make myself clear. And perhaps it
is confusing to use the word wlkWos as an example.

My basic idea is simply that a group of nouns originally had the
stress pattern.

Acc: *welqwèm
Gen: *welqwèse
Dat: *welqwe`ie

(A stable stress on the thematic wovel):

In the zero-grade period this would lead to another type of
declension than for the majority of nuns. In this declension the
thematic wovel was protected in all forms, and this was the origin of
the thematic declension.

Acc: *wlqwèm
Gen: *wlqwès
Dat: *wlqwèi

For the majority of nouns, I have the same view as you:

*pe`dem > pèdm
*pede`se > pedès


In a later period the o-grade appeared, that would leed to:

Acc: *wlqwòm
Gen: *wlqwòs
Dat: *wlqwòi


In order to repair homonymity, the following things took place:

The genitive got the extention -io
The dative ending -ei then was analogically transfered from the other
nouns to this conjugation.
The abl. ending -ot was transfered from the pronominal declension.

Acc: *wlqwòm
Gen: *wlqwòsio
Dat: *wlqwò:i


For many thematic nouns the accent was then shifted to the initial
syllable, but not for all nouns, leading to

Acc: *wl`qWom
Gen: *wl`qWesio

So: In short words. I do not think that a late developments could be
able to produce the whole scenario of thematic noun usage. Therefore
I think the best assumption is that the thematic declension appared
during the zero-grade period, because some nouns originally had
another stress pattern than the penultimate.


There are a lot of examples of phonetic development leading to
homonymity in a group of words, then after some time this homonymity
is then repaired by anology with other words, or by extentions.