H1 and t??

[Miguel Carrasquer Vidal]

Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk> wrote:

>The IE system has been basically correctly reconstructed by Cowgill in
>Evid.f.Laryng. as

>*eg' *tu    *we:   *yu:   *wey  *yu:s (nom.)
>*me  *t(w)e *nH3we *uH3we *nsme *usme (acc.)

>I have some difficulty only with the 2du acc. for which the Skt. stem
>yuva- (with y- from the nom.) rather points to *uH3e, probably with
>dissimilatory loss of the *-w-.

Why *H3 in the dual forms?  Couldn't it be *H1(w) with o-Stufe?
In principle, I'd go along with Beekes in reconstructing *-H1 for
the dual of nouns (in view of Greek consonant stem -e < *-H1, and
lengthened vowel elsewhere).

I won't comment in detail on the postulated pre-proto-paradigm
and all the intermediate stages leading to the PIE forms above,
except to note that in the proposed *tw- > *Dw- > *w- (2nd.p.
du./pl.) I miss a reference to the phoneme *c, as postulated
earlier.

My own vague thoughts about the prehistory of the PIE personal
pronouns go in a different direction.  I note an apparently
ancient pattern -i-/-u- for sg. vs. pl., as found e.g. in
Afro-Asiatic (Hausa sg. ni *ki si, pl. mu ku su), Basque (sg. ni
hi, pl. gu zu) and Kartvelian (Georgian sg. me s^en pl. c^ven
tkven).  This would suggest that the pronouns for pre-PIE might
have been sg. *mi *ti vs. pl. *mu *tu.  Apparently, pl. *tu
acquired singular meaning (modern day parallels are legion), and
a new plural was created, maybe something like *s-tu or *t-s-u
(JER's *cu ?), which went to *u- (but *su- in Anatolian?).

So a tentative paradigm would be (I and U denote unstressed i and
u):

1.sg. *mi'          [replaced by *eg^-]
acc.  *mI-me'       > *mene; *mme > *eme

1.du. *mu-e't       > *weh1
acc.  *mU-t-me'     > *mtwe > *ntwe > *nh1we

1.pl. *mu-e's       > *wes
acc.  *mU-s-me'     > *msme > *nsme

2.sg. *tu'          [emph. *tu:]
acc.  *tU-me'       > *tUwe > *twe, *te

2.du. *cu'-et       > *(y)u(:)h1
acc.  *cU-t-me'     > *utwe > *uh1we

2.pl. *cu'-es       > *(y)u(:)s, Hitt. sumes (*suwes)
acc.  *cU-s-me'     > *usme

>Until a few day ago, this analysis had only been published in the
>Copenhagen institute papers APILKU, vol. 6 from 1987, but now my old and
>hidden papers have been collected in two volumes of "Selected Papers in
>Indo-European Linguistics", published by Museum Tusculanum in Copenhagen
>(700 pp., $70, www.mtp.dk), and this one is among them.

Great!  Consider one copy sold (as soon as I get some money, that
is).

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv at wxs.nl
Amsterdam