Uralic and IE

[Glen Gordon]

MIGUEL:
  The instrumental [...] shows a lengthened vowel in all roots (-a:
  for a:-stems, -i: for i-stems, -o: or -e: for o-stems), which can
  only mean -H1.
ME (GLEN):
  Which can mean either a lengthened vowel or *H1, really. Besides
  probably Latin?, what evidence of this *-(e)H1 exists?
MIGUEL:
  A lengthened vowel in Vedic, Greek, Germanic, Lithuanian.  The
  quality of the vowel is unaffected.  Therefore, we must reconstruct
  *H1 (unless you think that laryngeal-PIE had long vowels *e: and
  *o:).

Well, here's my current position. I accept *H2 and *H3 as being /h/
and /h<w>/ respectively (and thus parallel to the velars). *H1 on the
other hand is at most a glottal stop which, iff it occured at all,
certainly would not have been a distinct phoneme. Mediofinal *H1
doesn't exist and vowel + *H1 is really a long vowel. The diphthongs
*eu and *ei are reinterpreted as *u: and *i:. I prefer not to accept
*e: (*eH1) as of yet in IndoAnatolian IE and reinterpret it as *a:.
The vowel *e is from unstressed **i/**u in closed syllable (cf. *ter-,
*es-, usw.) or throughout enclitics (cf. *ne, *me, *twe, *se, *swe,
blah, blah).

[ Moderator's query:
  Why would a glottal stop "certainly not be" a distinct phoneme?  I can think
  of several languages off the top of my head in which it is, so there is no
  reason other than _a priori_ bias to reject in for PIE.
  --rma ]

In light of this, the instrumental, if we can confidentally
reconstruct it in IndoAnatolian, is at most *-e: in nonAnatolian IE in
my view. Of course, a **t could also theoretically disappear in final
position so this says nothing in the end about your hypothesis.

However, I'm not hearing credible and regular Anatolian cognates with
other IE branches aside from an out-of-joint example of ablative-
instrumentals with dental which show what you're saying. That together
with lack of extra worthy examples of **-t > *-H1 makes me conclude
that the instrumental was being conveyed with the ablative and the
endings we see in later IE are only an innovation. Instrumental as it
exists in later IE languages can't be all that archaic.

MIGUEL:
   [...] I give you Georgian -it, Sumerian -ta].
ME (GLEN):
  Yes, that's right. I'm agreement with you but with vastly different
  reasons. And don't forget Uralic *-ta :) which is most evidently
  more relatable to the ablative *-ed based on those regular sound
  changes I mentioned.
MIGUEL:
  Non-Nostraticists look the other way...  Indeed: PIE *d == Uralic
  *t, PIE *t == Uralic *tt.  That's why I have taken great care to
  distinguish between the ablative in *d and the instrumental in *t
  (cf. again Georgian ablative -dan/adverbial -ad, Sumerian comitative
  -da).

You should take greater care. In fear of having this topic zapped away
from too much talk of Nostratic, I just will briefly illuminate this
arguement for what it is for those that don't understand the Nostratic
hypotheses involved.

First, Allan Bomhard states that PIE *-t- == Uralic *-t(t)-. Note the
parentheses? Doesn't look like he's all that certain, does it? Second,
the terms that you try to connect are with, what would be, Nostratic
*d. It is far more certain that a Nostratic *d == IE *dh. So if you
want to do comparisons like this that fit the Nostratic model as well
as IE itself, perhaps what you need is the locative in *-dhi (as in
Greek oiko-thi "at home"; synonymous with Etruscan -thi, -ti)
which would be more at sync with a Sumerian commitative afterall.
Finally, how do you know that this supposed process that causes **-t-
to become Uralic *-t(t)- occured before or after the first occurence
of post-position affixing that created this declension that we see in
Uralic and IE. Perhaps, an ablative postposition *ta was suffixed
AFTER this change? Too much uncertainty - enough of that.

[ Moderator's comment:
  That is standard notation for the longer "PIE *-t- corresponds to Uralic *-t-
  and *-tt-."  So I'm sure that Bomhard is quite certain, myself.  And this
  thread needs to move to the Nostratic list.  Far too much time has been spent
  on the IE list in discussions that aren't really on topic.
  --rma ]

At any rate, I fail to see where that point is going since one would
reason that if it's true that Pre-IE **-tV > *-d and that *-t = *-d =
*-dh then we should have as a follow-up rule: **-TV > *-d where T =
[any dental]. Your arguement here is not of much concern to both IE
studies and those of Nostratic.

ME (GLEN):
  Nor should it be shocking that the genitive *-es (**-ese) is also
  accented (cf. Etruscan -isa [genitive] and ? Sumerian -se [dative]).
MIGUEL:
  The Etruscan genitives are *-si and *-la (e.g. for the a-stems:
  [...]
  The Sumerian dative is -ra.  -she3 is the terminative ("towards,
  into, to").

Gee, "towards, into, to" sounds like a dative case to me. :) Clever,
but no cigar. This is all interesting and irrelevant. The ending <-si>
still shows a vowel originally occured after the *s genitive in
Etruscan that no longer shows itself in IE, aside from the mysterious
accentuation. It only validates my views.

I put a question mark before the Sumerian dative -she because it is a
budding theory of mine and I'm unsure of it. However it is an
intriguing premise for IE studies regardless of the fact that my
theory admittedly originated from observations in Nostratic.

I note that the genitive in *s is unique to Indo-Etruscan. Outside of
IEtr, languages viewed as Nostratic consistently use an ending with
sibilant for the _dative_, not for the genitive. Now, ignoring the
distant external examples like Sumerian -she, Georgian <datv-s>, etc.
it's still interesting that Uralic has no genitive in *s either and
that Finnish has -ssa (< -s-na) and -lla (< -l-na) being used for duty
as inessive and adessive (which are kinds of locative/dative cases),
endings which bare similarity to Etruscan and Anatolian's s- and
l-genitives. It's not impossible for the dative to become
genitive. Food for thought.

ME (GLEN):
   Judging by Greek we might have the following sketchy hypothesis:

                  *-H1-/-H2-/*-H3- >? Greek -k-

MIGUEL:
  I realize that you are new to this laryngeal business, but the
  a:-stems have *-H2.

Alright, let's be gracious and give you this one. Let's say that *-H2-
becomes Greek -k-. What next? You're only showing that complete IE
words can end with *H2 and this is something we both agree with, even
though I think *-H2 < **-H2-s [nominative]. Now, finally, will you
explain how one goes about showing that *-H2 is really from **-k?

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Glen Gordon
glengordon01 at hotmail.com
Kisses and Hugs
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