Differentiation

[Patrick C. Ryan]

Dear Jens and IEists:

 ----- Original Message -----
From: Jens Elmegaard Rasmussen <jer at cphling.dk>
Sent: Saturday, June 12, 1999 5:56 PM

Jens wrote:

> In response to a thread woven by Patrick C. Ryan

> Dear Pat,

> In some recent postings you have suggested that some IE mrophological
> forms, indeed categories, have arisen "by differentiation". I have spoken
> out against it, and you have asked me why.

> You wrote you would have to consider a form like 2pl *bhe'rete "quite a
> bit later than singular (really, number-neutral) forms", i.e. younger than
> *bhe'ret (which lives on as the 3sg). The point was that you wanted vowels
> to be predictable from the consonant skeleton, so you set the basic ablaut
> rule that deletes all unstressed short vowels in action. Actually, that
> should not allow *bhe'ret either, but only *bhe'rt, but no matter, let's
> take to have been the form, just for the sake of the argument.

Pat comments:

Well, I would be rather naif if I proposed a rule to explain *bhe{'}ret
which did not explain *bhe{'}et. In other discussions on related subjects, I
have indicated that I think it likely that a secondary stress-accent
explains apparent anomalies like this (**"bhe-'re-te -> '*bheret). There may
be other factors to be considered as well: what effect tone may have had in
combination with stress or no stress.

Jens continued:

> My objection is that if in such a language vowels only exist accented,
> there would be no variants containing unstressed vowels, and thus there
> would be no material the language could differentiate. When languages make
> arbitrary differentiations, they utilize existing patterns, but *bhe'rete
> could simply not exist in a language on which the fundamental ablaut rule
> had worked. Therefore either the rule or the idea of differentiation is
> wrong.

Pat responds:

Well, I think there is another clearer example of "differentiation": present
secondary 1st sing. -m as opposed to 1st pl. -me.

Jens continued:

> In fact, if grammatical number is something IE has in common with the
> other members of the presumed Nostratic macrofamily, it does not seem very
> likely that it would be an IE innovation, does it? To my eyes, it even
> looks as if the 1st and 2nd plural forms of the IE verb have the same
> conglomerate endings as in Uralic. I therefore do not believe they have
> arisen by a preocess of secondary differentiation which looks illogical to
> me in the first place.

Pat responds:

"Differentiation" is just one possible explanation since we do not really
have a perfectly clear understanding of the circumstances under which
zero-grades appear else we could agree on an explanation of *bhe{'}et.

Pat

PATRICK C. RYAN (501) 227-9947; FAX/DATA (501)312-9947 9115 W. 34th St.
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meipi er mangi veit hvers hann af rstum renn." (Havamal 138)